Develop a trustworthy, secure and independent industry-wide platform for a diverse target audience.
Outcome
The number 1 medicine-platform in the Netherlands, giving personalized advice and information about medicine ingredients and use.
Impact
1.7 million monthly website visitors, ranking number 1 in search engines and site of the year.
N°1
Position in search engines
Strategy
Providing an optimal customer experience was the strategic focal point. We used extensive user-testing among the target audience on experience, design and usability before and during the development phase.
User research showed that visitors search for information in more than one way. This is why visitors are offered multiple ways to search; directly by medicine name, active ingredients and by symptoms.
In most cases, visitors land on the website through Google. The site’s pages are designed to only show the most relevant information. The responsive design is optimized for all devices. Trustworthiness is important to Apotheek.nl, which is why the website showcases real pharmacists and even has a web-pharmacist on call.
Creative
In addition to the various search options, we developed a pharmacy finder, a chat service and a scan option for medicine barcodes enabling visitors to find the right information immediately.
Apotheek.nl also offers a wide array of easily accessible content, such as: explanatory videos, infographics, readspeaker functionality, theme pages with custom content and an icon library illustrating the effects of specific medicine use.
‘Since 2011 DPDK has helped us out with the design and development of our products that we offer pharmacies and the broader health environment in The Netherlands. Their look on online experiences combined with exceptional design adds an extra dimension to our products. Together we have developed a style that gives our visitors and customers a certain feeling of recognition through the range of our online products. Developing this product-family feeling has been paramount in our relationship. By listening well and co-creating DPDK has helped us make this a success.’
Technology
The Progressive Web App (PWA) is built on top of the PHP/Phalcon backend. The CMS is built headless in Drupal. PWA technology enables visitors to download content for offline viewing.
The web camera takes a picture of medicine barcodes and integrates with an API to quickly find information on that specific medicine. A Google Maps plugin enables visitors to find their nearest pharmacy. The search functionality is built on top of the SOLR engine.
System Integrations
Multiple internal REST API’s, Google Cloud API’s, SOLR
Tech partners
Inclusive design functionalities: enlarge copy option, readspeaker functionality and dictionary of difficult words.
Highlights
Apotheek.nl has won website of the year in the Health category multiple times, most recently in 2020.
Production of hundreds of videos with real pharmacists.
The implementation of readspeaker to make the website more accessible for people with a reading disability or non-native speakers.
