The Eye Observer is a trusted eye health platform serving readers across Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Taiwan, with years of clinician-contributed content and a loyal audience to show for it.
The opportunity was clear: the platform had the trust, the content, and the reach. What it needed was an experience that actually did something with all three.
More about this project
The Eye Observer
2025
UX Research & UI Design
Brand Identity
Visual Asset Production
Front-End Development
Back-End Development
Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
The audience was there. The content was good. But the platform wasn't converting any of it into meaningful action.
Navigation relied on category names that made sense internally but left new visitors guessing. The homepage dropped users straight into an article feed with no introduction, no hierarchy, and no clear next step. First-time visitors had little reason to stay, and returning ones had few reasons to come back.
The platform also read narrower than it was. Despite covering a range of eye conditions, dry eye dominated the surface, leaving users with other concerns underserved and underseen. And behind the scenes, mobile load times were failing Core Web Vitals, bleeding the audience that took years to build.
• Brand Identity Refresh
A sharper visual identity across all seven markets. Cleaner type, a more authoritative palette, and a consistent asset system that finally matched the credibility of the content it framed.
• Redesigned Information Architecture
Navigation rebuilt around how users actually think, not how content is internally categorized. A condition switcher lets users move fluidly between topics, including the platform's existing Beyond Dry Eyes, Eye Stories, and Ask the Observer sections. Book an Appointment moved from buried to front and center.
• Expanded Content Scope
Myopia, cataracts, LASIK recovery, and preventive care joined the content framework alongside existing dry eye content, giving every visitor a reason to stay regardless of what brought them there.
• Specialist Finder, Rebuilt
Stripped back, sped up, and unblocked. The doctor locator was redesigned so the tool leads, not the disclaimer. Search and filtering rebuilt for speed and clarity.
• Community Forum
A Forum was added to the main navigation, giving the platform's audience a home for questions, peer exchange, and clinician-verified answers without having to leave the site to find it.
• Performance Overhaul
Full front-end rebuild, mobile-first. Load time cut from 4.8s to 0.9s. All Core Web Vitals: pass.
Privacy Compliance
Cookie consent rolled out across all seven markets, meeting regional data privacy requirements in Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Organic click-through rate up 301% across target markets, the result of cleaner UX, faster load times, and content that actually matched what people were searching for.
4,800 specialist appointments facilitated in the first 90 days. Before the rebuild, that number was zero.
Mobile load time dropped from 4.8 seconds to 0.9 seconds, with all Core Web Vitals passing at launch.
Return visitor rate grew from 12% to 38%, proof that when a platform gives people more to explore, they come back to explore it.
