What a clinic website has to do before eight

A patient is looking you up at 7:40. They want to know if you are open, how to reach you, and whether they should come in. If the answer sits three screens down, they call the next practice on the list.

A clinic site is not a brochure. It is a desk that has to answer when the phone is busy.

That first screen has a job:

• Opening hours for today, including the Thursday you close at noon.
• A phone number that is a tap on a phone, not a picture of a number.
• How to book — form, phone, or both — and which one you actually want.
• Where you are, and where to park.
• Which languages you work in, and how insurance works if that matters where you are.

None of this is a design trend. It is whether the site does the work of a receptionist at the hour people actually look.

A package site from 2016 often fails this test on a phone. Replacing it is not a rebrand. It is making the desk answer again.

If you want that desk rebuilt, write and say what a patient must find in the first screen.