More about myHIV

Peter Kelly, THT's web development manager talks about how we developed and delivered myHIV, tailoring it for our specific audiences.

I've worked at Terrence Higgins Trust for almost 2 years managing the development of myHIV. It’s been a very rewarding experience, and I think we've met some big challenges.

From the earliest stages of the project, people with HIV have been involved both within the project team and also in wide consultations and in-depth user testing, to find out what information, tools and services could be delivered online, and how we could really make a new HIV site speak to people no matter who they were.

Amongst health sites, myHIV is unique in allowing people to tailor the imagery and key content if you choose to reflect the fact that you might be an African person living in the UK or a gay man (the two groups most affected in the UK). But no matter who you are, the site is tailored for everyone, with specific information and signposting for you whether you are new to living with HIV or have been diagnosed for many years, whether you are under 25 or over 50, and we will be continuing to develop new content in response to feedback we get from you!

We realised early on that people do want a personal experience but they don’t want to have assumptions made about them, so we developed the selection module that’s always present at the top right of the page to allow you to choose which version of the site you want to look at.

One of the most gratifying moments in a user testing session was to see how positively people responded to the ability to change the look and feel of the site to be 'for' them. One of our volunteer site testers in Manchester described the African version of the site as being 'like visiting an African support group' – not the only way he likes to be supported, but a key aspect in his HV support network. And that is exactly what we were hoping to give people, a fully supportive experience.

If you have any ideas for new content areas you think we should be developing, or if you’d like to share any other feedback with us to help us make the site even better please let know.

Peter Kelly
Web Development Manager
web@tht.org.uk

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