Student Medical Ethics Journal
A content problem hiding inside a navigation problem.
Role
Designer & Researcher
Timeline
13 weeks
Team
4 designers
Our team of four ran five research streams, rebuilt the information architecture and designed six flows plus a design system. SMEJ approved the redesign and plans to implement it.
The problem
SMEJ is a nonprofit, student-run journal opening up medical ethics to students, practitioners and educators. Its site was buckling under content formats it was never designed for.
improve reader retention
boost seo & discoverability
clarify site structure
streamline contributions
build a multimedia framework
The site followed SMEJ’s internal taxonomy, not how readers think and browse.
SMEJ’s brief: not five problems, five symptoms.
Research
They search in everyday words, refine short queries over and over, and leave when content takes too long to find.
Across NEJM, The Lancet, AMA Journal of Ethics, The BMJ and STAT, the same three patterns kept causing failure: hidden or overly complex submission paths, inconsistent navigation that created dead ends, and content so dense it overwhelmed rather than invited.
land on homepage
→
scan 7 menu items
→
guess: topics or issues?
→
scroll a dense list
→
dead end
→
leave
Finding an article on the current site.
PERSONA 01
the student reader
GOAL
Find a strong article on a topic for a class or paper.
FRUSTRATION
Searches in everyday words; the site expects journal categories.
PERSONA 02
the educator
GOAL
Gather readings and seminars around one ethical question.
FRUSTRATION
Articles, video and podcasts live in separate places.
PERSONA 03
the contributor
GOAL
Submit work and know what happens next.
FRUSTRATION
Submission paths are hidden or complex.
Proto-personas drawn from our user testing.
Process
4 weeks
Exploratory research
3 weeks
Schematic design
3 weeks
Client review
3 weeks
Refinement
Our low-fidelity wireframes focused on four moves, each tied to a finding.
01
Topic-based navigation: a perspective map and curated collections
02
A homepage built for discovery
03
Search designed for everyday language
04
A simpler global navigation
Lo-fi wireframes: perspective map, homepage, search and navigation
We presented the designs to SMEJ, gathered feedback, and spent the final three weeks refining them.
Solution
Academic readers navigate by ethical framework first and topic second. Each node is an ethical perspective, sized by content volume, with a list view for readers who prefer one.
Cross-tagging means nothing falls through the cracks. A list view toggle keeps a familiar way in for readers who prefer it.
Five top-level items became three. The homepage became a discovery surface: Latest, Editor’s Picks, Most Trending, Author Highlights and themed Collections.
Before
After
Before: 5 navigation labels · After: Explore, Multimedia, About, with search and Submit always visible
SMEJ had no search before. Recent searches and popular topics appear before typing, filters stay visible, and labels show what each piece is before you open it.
land on the perspective map
→
pick a lens
→
see 24 results
→
scan labels
→
read and find related pieces
The same task in the redesign.
Declining submissions were part of SMEJ’s brief, and hidden submission paths were the most common failure in our landscape audit. Submit now sits in the header on every page.
submit from header
→
choose a path
→
check the info
→
pick a format
→
submit
Homepage · Search · Issue exploration · Multimedia · Submission · About
SMEJ yellow and black, Newsreader headings with Inter body, buttons and content badges
About page
Impact
SMEJ Editorial Team
The team responded most to the Perspective Map, Submission Flow and About Page.
Built to grow
What I learned
Organizational logic and user logic are almost never the same. SMEJ’s site was built around categories that felt natural from the inside; the problem only became visible once we stood outside it.
