Case study: Athena Matheou

BACKGROUND

I built an html website for Athena Matheou back in early 2011, when she was starting her career as a psychotherapist. The website has served her well, with occasional content updates, but it is non-responsive – built and launched when mobile use was in its infancy. That now needs to change.

Potential clients mostly find Athena through the two major professional associations – the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Her site needs to be instantly accessible, convey something of her personality, and include vital information about her approach to counselling, training, experience and costs.

With a high degree of ‘competition’ within this field of work, the website needs to complement her details held by the professional associations, giving concise information and explanantion to help potential clients who may be feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable.

VISION

I initiated a conversation about creating a responsive website. I felt this would look more professional and give Athena access to potential clients who may not own a laptop or desktop computer.

I wanted to create a clean, smart website that steered away from the 'alternative' clichés of many counselling portfolio sites. I decided a single page site would be more effective, and set about reworking the written content – what to drop, what to update, and how to break content into more accessible, logical sections. I felt it was important to maintain brand consistency, so that existing clients would find the new site familiar.

I am not a trained coder, so I found an html / css / java template that I could pull apart and rework as required. This enabled me to edit the site to strengthen her brand and add functionality that enhances the user experience.

I tested my final design with the Responsively app, enabling me to check locally stored files for consistent visuals and UX.

OUTCOME

• It's too early to quantify the new site's impact on client requests, but I have a very happy client!