COCA Provider Directory

The Central Ohio Counseling Association's provider "directory" was a Microsoft Word document: a static list with no search, no filtering, and no way to judge fit, on a site that had never had an interactive feature. Finding a therapist is a high-stakes, emotionally loaded decision, and the absence of a usable tool was a direct barrier to people getting care.

Many of the people using it were older adults, and many were not comfortable with technology. That set the bar: nothing could depend on knowing the right search term, and no wrong turn could leave someone stranded.

The directory was a Word document

Most people seeking therapy don't know what to search for. They know how they feel, what kind of support they need, and what practical constraints they have: insurance, location, session format, availability. The list gave them names and phone numbers.

Listening to people in a vulnerable moment

I ran moderated sessions with eight people who had recently searched for a therapist, some who found one and some who didn't: task-based testing of the old Word doc directory, then a search with an early prototype of the new one. I also interviewed six COCA staff who took the calls from people the site had failed, and audited the directory against WCAG 2.1 AA.

• People needed to know how a provider works before reaching out. Looking at the old directory, participants wanted to know a provider's approach before they'd call. The list gave them a name and a phone number.
• The early prototype's search felt clinical and cold. That feedback set the direction for the visual design.

Filters that match how people choose a therapist

A search box assumes you know the words. The directory was built around structured filters for what research showed people weigh first: insurance, whether a provider is taking new clients, cost and sliding-scale fees, and specialty. Free-text search stayed for anyone who already knows a name. Active filters show as chips you can remove one at a time, so narrowing never means starting over.

Profiles ordered by the questions people asked

Each provider's profile page was reordered around the questions from research. The first three fields answer "is this person right for me?" before anyone scrolls. Credentials are still there, at the bottom, where users had ranked them. No screens of the profile page survive, so the order is shown here as a diagram, and the mobile profile is reconstructed under Craft.

The "about my approach" section is rich text, so providers could write it their own way and add links, images, and formatting. That was deliberate: research showed clinicians disliked other directories that scripted their profiles too much.

Build new, don't retrofit

Rather than bolting features onto a static WordPress site, I designed the directory as a standalone, embeddable module with no dependency on the legacy codebase. It also had to work as a table on a desk and as cards on a phone, since most people searched from one.

Desktop: a sortable table

Phone: stacked cards

A profile card that answers the question

Testing showed the early prototype's search felt clinical and cold, so the visual system went warm: a gold accent, soft surfaces, generous type. Every element on the card is there because a participant asked for it.

Warm, and accessible by construction

Every component was built to WCAG 2.1 AA: contrast checked on the gold and the status colors, visible focus on everything interactive, a mobile-first layout, and filters that work with a keyboard and a screen reader. Large type and plain labels were for the many older and less technical users the directory served, not only for the audit.

An interactive walkthrough of part of the directory as it shipped. Try the filters, search, and explore the provider results to see how the filters narrow the list.

Usability testing of the redesign improved every primary metric, with the biggest gains in task completion and confidence. The directory shipped to WCAG 2.1 AA and replaced the Word document entirely. After launch, the site it lived on saw its traffic grow by more than 400%. A directory people could actually use turned a page nobody visited into the reason they came. It stayed in use for about five years, until COCA rebuilt its site so non-technical staff could maintain it.