Transforming Hinge Health’s Digital Presence: Launching the Digital Musculoskeletal Clinic

In 2020, Hinge Health redefined the musculoskeletal care landscape with a bold vision: expanding their offering from a single program to the groundbreaking Digital Musculoskeletal Clinic (DMSKC), a suite of four comprehensive programs. This wasn’t just an expansion—it was a leap toward unparalleled innovation, setting Hinge Health apart in a competitive industry. The DMSKC introduced cutting-edge features, including Expert Medical Opinion (EMO), providing in-depth doctor consultations, and Video Visits, enabling real-time virtual appointments with physical therapists for personalized medical guidance.

This transformative announcement came with a commitment to hire over 100 full-time physical therapists and doctors, marking a historic milestone for the company. My role was to bring this vision to life through compelling visuals and a strategic digital experience that would captivate users and amplify Hinge Health’s leadership in digital health.

Here's another way to explain the growth of the company: we were able to do more things (horizontal) but the things we could already do, we did better (vertical).

The Challenge

The task was to design a dedicated section on the Hinge Health website that clearly and elegantly answered three critical questions:

– What is the DMSKC?
– What programs does it include?
– What features distinguish each program?

This section needed to be intuitive, visually striking, and optimized for a seamless user experience across devices. It also had to align with a high-profile PR campaign spanning LinkedIn and health-industry blogs, ensuring consistency and impact across all touchpoints. The stakes were high: the campaign was expected to drive significant traffic, and the website had to engage and convert this influx of visitors while maintaining a low engineering lift.

The Approach

To meet these demands, I spearheaded a collaborative design process, exploring a multitude of creative directions. After rigorous ideation, I narrowed the focus to three distinct visual concepts, each balancing aesthetics, functionality, and technical feasibility.

Concept 1: Data Table layout. The good: eliminates repeat text, understandable at a glance, easy to add rows and columns. The bad: possible unintended consequence that some programs are better than others, complications with responsiveness

Concept 2: Concentric Circles. The good: interesting and space-saving layout. The bad: unnecessary cognitive load, program details are separated from program names

Through two weeks of intensive discussions with cross-functional teams, including engineering, marketing, and data analytics, we refined the visuals to ensure they were responsive, user-friendly, and aligned with Hinge Health’s brand identity. The resulting website module was a testament to precision and innovation, delivering a clear and delightful explanation of the DMSKC’s value.

Screenshot of the final module after applying branding. See web archive:

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Six months later, as part of a company-wide mini-rebrand, I revisited the module to enhance its clarity further. This iteration incorporated dynamic video assets, elevating the user experience and reinforcing the DMSKC’s sophistication. Beyond the website, I crafted a suite of graphics for the PR campaign, ensuring a cohesive narrative across digital and social platforms.

This new layout allowed us to incorporate a 1-2 minute video on each program, providing valuable information about what each program entails, and how they differ from each other.

This GIF shows where in the flow of the home page we inserted the module.

We knew that a PR campaign of this size would generate enormous traffic. We wanted to communicate clearly and delightfully to those people. Here are a few more parts of the campaign, which funneled to the home page:

The launch of the DMSKC and its accompanying campaign was a success, validated by measurable outcomes. With the support of the data team, we tracked performance metrics that underscored the project’s impact:  

Here are some data-backed outcomes that this campaign had either a direct or indirect influence on. We were glad that this company milestone had a tremendous effect on the bottom line.

These results not only validated the strategic design decisions but also showcased the power of integrating compelling visuals with a user-centric digital strategy. By transforming complex information into an accessible and engaging experience, this project elevated Hinge Health’s brand and solidified its position as a trailblazer in digital musculoskeletal care.