Challenge

THT was inspired to use technology to deliver more engaging content as an alternative to face-to-face support which was increasingly placing strain on services available from the NHS. While designing a personalisation strategy that would truly meet the requirements of a very diverse audience, care had to be taken to comply with the Department of Health’s Information Standard. With the guidance of Reading Room, Terrence Higgins Trust chose to replace its bespoke CMS with Sitecore.

Key reasons for selecting Sitecore:

• Ability to deliver intelligent content personalisation based on user profile and location
• Third party frameworks/services integration capabilities
• Sitecore enables high level of security management
• Availability of extensive developer community and access to community modules
• Extensibility – able to adapt and change based on needs, centralising content deployment and microsite management.
• Extending Sitecore’s user management controls throughout the website including video counselling
• Reading Room created a Services Feed to enable integration with the National AIDS Map to import all their services on a daily basis into Sitecore, including a taxonomy key which is essential to the success of the website, providing localized content.

Solution

THT’s achieved an important aspect of its plan; to create intelligent personalisation that would be specifically tailored to the website visitor – to engage them and convey information in a way that corresponds sensitively to their needs. The myhiv.org.uk website complies with Department of Health’s Information Standards, ensuring that the privacy of people using the website is protected while allowing them to connect with others in a safe and secure community. Terrence Higgins Trust in turn can monitor information online to develop content that further meets the needs of its website visitors including via Quiz module delivered by Sitecore which helps THT understand visitors’ level of education and knowledge.

Result

Myhiv.org.uk has won a Stevie International Business Award and has been shortlisted for Blades Awards, The Charity Times Awards, and The Guardian Public Services Awards. The website was highly commended by the British Medical Association’s Patient Information Awards. The website is able to deliver intelligent content personalisation to 4 distinct personas (the groups most affected by HIV in the UK); Older gay men,  African people in the UK, Young Gay men Everyone. In the first 8 months achieved over 2000 registered members. Over 30% of registrants have already started using the forum and have created over 1800 posts. The website has gained over 25,000 visits since its launch and over 160,000 page views with 43% of visitors returning with an average time-on-site of 6.12 minutes. The success of the MyHIV.org website led to the decision that Sitecore would be the underlying technology to power all THT websites including campaign microsites.