Accessibility — it's the foundation you build first

The Filatov Institute is one of the oldest ophthalmological institutions in Ukraine. Founded by the renowned surgeon Volodymyr Filatov, the institute has spent over 100 years combining treatment, science, education and international collaboration. Its activities include: clinical departments, clinical research, postgraduate studies (PhD & Doctoral),a scientific school, conferences, a library and a museum.

Over 4 years of partnership, we built a digital platform that connects patients, medical professionals, and academic research within a single, accessible ecosystem.

Personas, site structure, content mapping, wireframes — every decision starts on paper before it reaches the screen.

Patients, medical professionals, and researchers need completely different information — so we gave each group its own section with independent navigation.

Colour wasn't decorative. Purple for patients — it remains distinguishable across the widest range of vision conditions. Teal for professionals — the colour of medical workwear, immediately familiar to staff. Blue for the institute — the original institutional colour, carried into the academic and research section.

Each section stands alone. Patients find appointments without wading through PhD archives. Researchers aren't distracted by intake forms.

We didn't install a plugin. We made the site readable from the start.

The common approach: A plugin with 10+ controls.

Font size slider, contrast picker, spacing adjuster, animation toggle, cursor modifier — a person with poor vision can't navigate this labyrinth.

We took a different route. Contrast and readability are built into the base design — the site works at default settings. The only addition is an Aa icon in the header: one click switches to large text and black-and-white contrast. Nothing else to configure.

What an initial user survey showed:

The takeaway: people don't configure the site — they configure their device. Our job isn't to offer settings. It's to make sure a visually impaired patient finds a doctor's contact in 10 seconds, not 10 minutes.

Version 2.0 note: The first release gave us real usage data. With those numbers in hand, the accessibility approach will be revisited in v2.0 — refined based on actual user behaviour, not assumptions.

We tested across common visual impairments — blur, contrast loss, colour deficiency. The site remains navigable and readable in every case. A patient with seriously compromised vision can still find a phone number, a building, a doctor. Early user feedback reflects this: 7 out of 10 rated the site's readability positively.

A government institution with decades of history means a sprawling campus — multiple buildings, long corridors, departments spread across the grounds. Reception is a single desk handling the entire site. Patients arrive, often already anxious, unsure which building to go to or who to ask.

We added an interactive campus map with building locations and a department schedule showing room numbers and contact details. Patients can check exactly where to go before they arrive — without needing to find someone to ask.

Small additions. But for someone navigating an unfamiliar medical campus alone, they matter.

Reusable templates — department profiles, doctor cards, service pages, news — keep the structure consistent as the site grows. The admin panel lets institute staff add and update content independently, no developer needed. Four levels of navigation handle complex information without losing the user along the way.

We didn't just design pages — we structured content, wrote copy, and filled the site. For a government institution with limited marketing resources and overloaded medical staff, this meant the platform launched complete, not as an empty shell waiting for someone to find time.

The site is still being filled — medical content takes years to migrate and organize. But the foundation is solid, and the institute team knows how to scale it.

Our healthcare work extends beyond this institute. We've redesigned platforms for maternity hospitals (working with legacy code and complex admin systems), produced pharma publications and educational materials, and helped medical facilities adapt during extremely challenging times — including wartime conditions when clear, accessible communication became critical for patient safety.

Each project reinforces the same principle: healthcare digital systems must prioritize clarity, accessibility, and resilience over visual trends.