In healthcare and pharma, compliance isn’t optional. However, when it becomes the only priority, the patient experience suffers.
Every button, tray, disclosure, and footnote is scrutinized. Legal reviews are rigorous. Regulatory bodies are watching. But in the rush to stay compliant, something critical is often lost:
The human experience.
Too many brand websites in this space check the regulatory boxes... but ultimately fail their users.
Let’s be very clear about this: Regulatory adherence is crucial. However, when that becomes the only lens through which a website is built, the result is what we call compliance theater.
Now, these websites look like they’re doing everything right:
PI links are everywhere
Disclaimers cover every interaction
But try actually using the website, on a phone, on shaky Wi-Fi, with a real-world attention span... And things fall apart quickly. Compliant does not mean user friendly.
Here’s what patients, providers, and caregivers often encounter:
1. Two(!) pop-ups before any content loads
Often a cookie disclaimer, followed by an age verification or consent modal. Before users see a single line of real information, they’ve already had to interact twice.
2. Persistent ISI trays that dominate the screen
These are supposed to be accessible, not intrusive. On smaller screens, they can eat up 30–40% of the viewport.
3. Bloated load times
Many healthcare sites are built on enterprise CMSs like Adobe Experience Manager or Sitecore which are robust platforms that are capable of extraordinary performance. But too often, they’re deployed like static brochureware with bloated scripts, oversized images, and inefficient rendering. We've seen this all too often - the business and brand managers pursue top of the line platforms offering a the latest and greatest features, only to have IT and compliance water things down to barebones.
4. Information buried or hard to parse
When critical content is gated behind five disclaimers or hidden inside dense legal language, the story, and the user, becomes lost.
Enterprise CMS platforms like AEM, Sitecore, and Optimizely are powerful. They offer personalization, localization, headless deployment options, and scalable content governance.
But here’s the problem: Most organizations don’t use them that way.
Instead of unlocking differentiated experiences, they:
Stick with default templates, or a simplified global template that leaves little to no flexibility
Don’t take advantage of performance optimization
Fail to integrate analytics beyond basic dashboards
Ignore modular content models, creating redundant updates across brands and geographies0
The result? A CMS that’s supposed to empower becomes a bottleneck, or worse, a slow, monolithic system that frustrates both marketers and users.
Every friction point above creates cognitive overload, and attention is currency. If your site feels slow, overwhelming, or hard to navigate, users won’t wait it out. They’ll close the tab, forget the brand, or worse, turn to a competitor.
And while you might be meeting compliance requirements, you’re quietly losing:
Brand trust
Patient understanding
Lead capture
HCP engagement
Program enrollment
Script lift
A high-performing healthcare or pharma website balances compliance with clarity. It guides users, not just checks boxes.
Here’s what that looks like:
Performance-optimized builds. Mobile-first design, compressed assets, lazy loading, CDN usage, and caching done right.
Strategic ISI/PI handling. Trays and disclosures that inform without overwhelming.
Search-first content architecture. Structured for crawlability, AEO, and patient/HCP intent mapping.
Empathetic UX. Messaging hierarchy that meets users where they are, whether newly diagnosed, treatment-experienced, or clinical curious.
At XDS, we work with global brands across healthcare and life sciences to build experiences that perform across every metric that matters - speed, accessibility, usability, compliance, and conversion.
We know how to work within the walls of AEM and Sitecore while still unlocking modern experience design. We bring strategy, UX, dev, and analytics together to deliver more than just digital shelfware.
Want to know how your site measures up?
Request a free audit and we’ll share a side-by-side experience + compliance performance scorecard.
The Experience Design Studio is an award-winning digitally native customer experience agency founded in 2017 by two agency veterans, bringing their collective creative, user experience, marketing, technology, and healthcare expertise together.
XDS is a full-service digital agency providing strategy to creation, consulting, design, engineering, marketing, and analytics, with the aim of providing seamless DTC and B2B experiences across all digital touch points, with common sense sprinkled in.