Heartbase and Heart Clinic Foundation: two cardiology websites in Switzerland, with Beling Thoenen Design

Heartbase was founded in Zurich in 2020 as a network of cardiology practices that extends primary care with first-rate outpatient cardiology, with several sites across German-speaking Switzerland and closely linked to the Herzklinik Hirslanden. The same cardiologists run the Heart Clinic Foundation, which works to raise awareness of heart disease, promote early detection and support treatment through research, training and humanitarian projects. Both projects came to us through Beling Thoenen Design, a Zurich design studio we complement well: they specialise in editorial, typographic and web design, and we specialise in user experience, information architecture, conceptualisation and development of digital projects. A collaboration born of friendship between the two studios' partners and of Beling Thoenen Design's close ties to Barcelona.

Heartbase was a new network with no website: patients needed to find the nearest practice, know which cardiologists see patients at each site and which tests are done where, and the website had to grow as more sites and specialists joined. The foundation, for its part, needed to raise awareness of its work and attract the donations that fund its humanitarian projects.

Both websites shared the same requirements: the client had to be able to manage the content on its own, they had to grow with new sections and features without changing platform, they had to launch in one language with room to add more, and they had to work well on any device. Beling Thoenen Design designed the content tree, the wireframes and the art direction; we reviewed every delivery with usability in mind and turned the design into a website that worked.

For Heartbase we built a website on Drupal that links cardiologists, sites and tests: each specialist has their own profile and CV linked to the practice where they see patients, each test states where it's carried out, and each site brings together its contact details and its team. We launched it in May 2022, with technical SEO taken care of from day one.

We approached the foundation in two steps. First, a landing page to give it a presence as soon as possible, in the summer of 2022. Then the full website, launched in February 2023, with its projects, news and training materials, cardiovascular disease figures and an integrated donation system, with the payment methods common in Switzerland. It launched in English and today also runs in German.

We trained the client and Beling Thoenen Design so they could manage both websites with full autonomy, and since then we've handled their technical maintenance to keep them stable and reliable.