Dr. Steffen Bau
WEB DESIGN
doctorbau.info
I was actually the first to approach Dr. Bau. He happened to be assisting with our daughter, and me being me, before we went in for the visit I looked to see if he had a website. Indeed he did, but it was very old and outdated and looked like something from the early 2000’s rather than a modern and professional site. After he saw to the care of my young daughter, I brought up his website and inquired if he was in the market for an upgrade. He said he was so we proceeded to collaborate from there.
Design Challenges
One of the most primary design challenges that we faced at the outset was: How do we manage to combine both a very professional and very personal touch to his website? On the one hand we wanted it to be classic, in the sense that it conveyed a professional tone and was representative of his practice and his work in general, which can be quite serious as he often deals with life-saving measures in the neonatal ICU.
On the other hand we also wanted to infuse his website with a warmth and charm, similar to how his own office was decorated. In addition to his personal background and professional resume, we wanted to include a page about his family, to whom he is very close. To top it off we needed to display in depth several sections relating to his services and incorporate the informational blog posts he had written.
Solutions
To maintain the professionalism, we opted for a light green color scheme with a couple shades of darker green for accent. This brings a calming, straightforward and medical tone to the website. This set the backdrop. We then settled on professional and easy to read typography – again, to instill a sense of seriousness and professionalism but not too rigid.
We accented the colors where possible with lighter yellows to give it a warmer touch, and included fun illustrations like the one above which we took straight from the decorations in his own office. He is, after all a pediatrician so a welcoming warmth and joy is essential for his patients and families. We wanted to emphasize that.
Finally, we added a number of both personal, professional, and biographical photos with some slight animation to liven the site up and give it a very clean and beautiful look.
RESULTS
All in all it was a challenging and rewarding experience and we’ve gotten great feedback on our design choices. We believe that all websites, particularly those that are personal and professional should reflect the personality and characteristics of the owner. Likewise, business or corporate websites should reflect the values and ethos of the organization they represent. We aimed for – and believe we achieved – an efficient merging of the two.
