American Board of Radiology (ABR)
Transforming complexity into clarity for the radiology community
The American Board of Radiology (ABR) certifies radiology professionals in the U.S. and Canada across four disciplines: diagnostic radiology, interventional radiology, medical physics, and radiation oncology. Its website is integral in delivering vital certification information to the radiology community – from physicians to patients and beyond.
Key stats
The opportunity
The ABR had a huge volume of content on their website, and it was continuing to grow over time.
Such comprehensive information was difficult to navigate, making it frustrating for users to quickly and easily find the information they needed.
The tone of voice was often overly formal and complex, leaving users more confused about what they needed to do than when they entered the site.
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And, perhaps most importantly, the ABR’s value and purpose were getting lost in the fray.
The result
Through a comprehensive content audit of over 370 pages, a tone of voice and navigational overhaul, and a complete rewrite of their core pages, the ABR now has a website that’s both easier to navigate and understand.
We redesigned their website with a task-oriented information architecture (IA) in place and content that's significantly reduced and easier to use.
Designing a clearer, task-first experience
Similar to our ‘I want to…’ content strategy for MYOB, our work for ABR centred around user intent. Their previous website split content by discipline, meaning there was often duplicate (and conflicting) information across multiple pages. Rather than organising content around disciplines, we restructured the IA around what people come to the site to do.
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That meant leading with clear tasks like:
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Get certified.
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Stay certified.
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Volunteer.
By reframing navigation and naming conventions through the lens of user needs, we made sure radiologists could confidently and quickly find what they need (and with less clicking around).
Before (left) versus after (right). Our priority was clearly helping users initiate and complete relevant tasks. We achieved this by creating a new navigation focused on what people wanted to do on the site. They no longer have to dig around for information by discipline.
Using data and discovery to shape content strategy
In addition to informing the new structure of the website, our content audit identified some key pain points. We found that many pages contained big blocks of unformatted text, mismatched titles and URLs, and inaccessible practices (such as text hidden in images and non-contextual anchor text on links).
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We wanted to improve readability, make sure the content was accessible for everyone, and provide more clarity by:
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Rewriting the content in plain English.
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Using ‘you’ language.
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Converting long and complex paragraphs into checklists, dot points, and step-by-step instructions.
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Highlighting the value of certification and the ABR's role in delivering it.
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Ensuring the intended audience and next steps were clear on every page.
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Before: The previous ‘Check a certification’ tool didn’t communicate the ABR’s value.
After: The new content uses empathetic ' you’ language to speak directly with the user about the benefits of the ABR’s verification tool.
We also developed content governance recommendations to help ABR manage and maintain their content going forward, covering everything from how long announcements should stay live to how often they should review their blog posts and newsletters.
Now, whether a user arrives through a direct link, an online search, or any other means the content should immediately make sense.
Making every page count
One of the key insights from the audit was that most users weren’t starting on the homepage. Instead, they often were landing directly on pages via links in emails and stakeholder communications. That meant every landing page needed to carry its weight.
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We focused on:
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Putting the purpose of each page front and centre, with a quick snapshot of what to expect at the top of each page.
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Clarifying who each message was for through the new naming conventions.
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Reducing repetitive content across pages.
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Improving lateral navigation through internal links so that even if the information someone's looking for isn’t on the page they arrive on, they can quickly find the right page.
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A smarter system for growth
With continual regulatory changes, exam updates, and more, ABR needed a website system designed to scale (not sprawl, as it was doing).
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With the new structure we implemented:
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Internal teams can manage content more efficiently.
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Updates don’t need to be duplicated across multiple disciplines, but just in one source of truth.
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Future content can be added in the right place, rather than being hidden in orphaned pages.
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Users spend less time navigating and more time doing what they came for.
Through a comprehensive tone of voice overhaul, content audit, IA restructure, and website rewrite, the ABR now has a site that works harder, reads clearer, and better communicates the ABR’s value to the radiology community and public.
“We’re thankful for your help in shaping a fresh, welcoming tone of voice for the website. Our testers are already raving about how much easier the information is to read and enjoy — and that’s completely thanks to your insight and creativity in helping us rethink how we communicate. We couldn’t have done it without you."
Kinsey SmithWright - Administrative Manager at the American Board of Radiology