Out with the old and in with the new!
From the President
Dr. Hruza served as Academy president from March 2019 to March 2020.
By George Hruza, MD, MBA, January 1, 2020
Happy New Year! I trust that everyone has their New Year’s resolutions in order. Whether they be resolving to tackle your burnout or contribute more to the Academy’s advocacy efforts, I wish everyone the best in achieving your goals this year.
Around the holidays, I often see several articles that recommend you start your resolutions prior to the year’s end — there is some anecdotal evidence that if you start early, you’re more likely to succeed. Your Academy has taken heed of that advice with its new website, aad.org! Following a yearlong development process, the AAD launched a new version of its website on Oct. 10.
Why did the Academy undertake this massive overhaul? Because your Academy listens to its members. You all made it clear that the old AAD.org, while loaded with content, was hard to navigate. To ensure the new site worked better, it was developed through extensive user testing with members. Experts watched members use the old site and asked them questions about the experience. AAD staff developed a new site based on these tests, which experts then tested with members to see if it hit the mark.
Academy member testers indicated that they wanted the site to be tailored to their need for speed, so the navigation was developed through several rounds of member testing to ensure that the most-used content was the easiest to access. All member-directed content on the site has been revised to be short and succinct, with clear guidance on what dermatologists need to do to accomplish their goals. Additionally, the search function on the site has been updated so members can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
Members also indicated that they value the wealth of public content the AAD offers — visited by 28 million people in 2018. So, the new site retains AAD.org’s best-in-class public content, winner of HealthWeb.org’s “Highly Recommended” designation — putting it ahead of WebMD, the CDC, and the Mayo and Cleveland Clinics. The redesign process ensured that public content consistently touts the abilities of board-certified dermatologists and makes it easy for prospective patients to use the popular Find A Dermatologist tool.
Finally, for the technically inclined: The back-end systems of the site have been completely overhauled for increased stability and much faster load times.
I, for one, appreciate how quick and easy it is to find what I’m looking for. Like most of you, my schedule is jam-packed, and I don’t have a lot of time to spend navigating through a maze of information. Thank you to all the Academy members and staff who took so much time to make sure our specialty starts the New Year off on the right foot with this great new website.
