The Society of Tissue Viability

Using insights to redefine a vital membership organisation

Embedding research insights – from our extensive research with stakeholders into the wider needs of the organisation, we were able to get a clear understanding of what was and wasn’t working from both the current website and the wider brand. We used the insights we gained to switch both the name and purpose of the Society to become wider and more exclusive to their membership. And by proxy, we turned the website on it’s head to become a more user-centred and friendly environment that can start building the foundations for their more inclusive community.

Content focus – as is often the case with an older website, there was a lot of legacy content that needed appraising and reworking to fit the future needs of users and the organisation. The drive was to create and design content that would appeal to the Society’s more diverse membership, so they didn’t just focus on specialist nurses, but actually included their wider membership of surgeons, district nurses, podiatrists, pharmacists, care homes and a whole host of other brilliant people who are making headway for lasting change.

Show don’t tell – being a learned society, the new website and wider brand needed to shine a spot light on the exceptional outcomes and work the Society are creating as an organisation. As part of our response to the persona research insights, we created new areas and content in the design of the new website, including member stories, which clearly evidenced the benefits and soft skills developed as part of being a member. This was balanced alongside a new area that will house all of their critical research and evidence base that can be easily searched and filtered.

How do you design a website for a diverse membership organisation?

Traditionally the Society (formerly the TVS / Tissue Viability Society) had been seen as pretty much exclusively for Tissue Viability Nurses. But their diverse membership wanted and needed more. We held several user workshops with key stakeholders to get to the crux of what both the legacy issues were with the existing site, but also, perhaps more importantly, what was really needed to propel the organisation into the future.

As part of our work, we completely redesigned the information architecture of the website, to fit the users needs, rather than a more internal-focused approach that had made the previous website become a ‘dumping ground’ for content that needed to be ‘just put up’ on the website. The tone and language used has become friendlier, more informal, but not dumbed down.

From the insights gathered, we interrogated the somewhat exhaustive membership packages and the levels that were on offer and helped to streamline these to show simple monthly fees – so it was clear to members both how much it would cost and what they were getting out of it. We also suggested and designed an exclusive membership area, with gated content that would help bolster the member benefits and value, but members felt was lost or unclear.

How do you create relevant brand principles?

When we were approached by Pink Marketing to work with the Society, they had no brand guidelines and their purpose and aesthetic was forgettable. We worked with our partners at Waller Creative for the brand design and Emmie Spencer on the positioning and purpose for the new brand.

As part of our rebrand, we advised the organisation to change their name from the Tissue Viability Society, or TVS as they were mainly known to the Society of Tissue Viability. There were a whole host of reasons we unearthed through our discovery phase to make that subtle shift, the main two being that the name could be mistaken for TVN (Tissue Viability Nurse) and perhaps positioned them too closely to this important, but just one, section of their membership. The other key reason, was a shift in their purpose – to a more collaborative approach.

Their new brand reflects this change and pivot, to the focus of being a community, a Society. As together they can use the power of collaborative thinking and action we really can solve skin and wound challenges. The design and language used now lives up to a more precision-based approach, that feels serious but still light, open and accessible.

Creating website designs without the reliance on photography

As part of the branding work, we discovered as is often the case with many clients, that it was tricky to find appropriate stock images. And in this specific case, it really is impossible to use photographers to capture patients with often quite chronic wounds. We have a mini suite of images to work with that were captured at previous events, that we were able to use to show authentically the membership and the work they do. However there were not enough images, and in the future it isn’t always possible to use photography to illustrate often quite complex ideas and thinking. As a result a visual language was developed through illustrative designs to symbolise thought patterns, community and molecules to allow the organisation to use these as stand-alone communications for scientific ideas and principles. The bold colour palette and use of a strong typeface also enabled producer interface design to work successfully without the need for lots of photography.