This is the second part of a series on the now-in-progress enhancements to the K4Health Web Products Portfolio. Read Part 1 (Photoshare and the Blog).

Updating the Main K4Health.org Site: We Hear You

As you may know, we have been working on several enhancements to K4Health’s web-based products. The next piece of this project to roll out will be a revised www.k4health.org. You’ll see changes within the next few weeks. (Later this spring, we will also be rolling out long-awaited improvements to Toolkits and POPLINE, a second round of Photoshare upgrades, and some more surprises.)

The upcoming changes are our response to the concerns raised by you—the people who rely on K4Health for high-quality, up-to-date information about family planning and reproductive health and related global health issues. We have turned our knowledge management expertise and the best practices we recommend to others onto ourselves.  Based on what we found our users need and want, we have revised how we arrange and share knowledge on K4Health.org, our flagship website.

Last spring, nearly three hundred visitors to K4Health.org filled out a survey telling us what they thought of the site. Overall, the feedback was positive, including compliments such as “I think there is a lot of important content on the site,” and “K4Health.org is an amazing ocean of resources.” But when asked to comment on their less-than-satisfied answers, survey respondents gave us some hard truths:

• “The site structure is not easy to navigate.”
• “The layout is not pleasing to the eye.”
• “Search results are not always fruitful and often list duplicate records.”
• “There is too much text per page, which can be cumbersome.”
•  “Not clear how to find out about country-level work you're doing.”

In looking at these responses, we realized that all of these constructive criticisms arose from the same source: We had made a website about us, when it should be about you.

Most of you don’t come to K4Health.org to learn about the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project. You come to use our products (like Photoshare’s images and POPLINE’s scholarly literature) and our content (Toolkits, health information needs assessments, Global Handbook, and other publications and resources). You come to find reliable answers and practical solutions that you can apply in your own work.  

If you have questions or concerns about these changes, please contact me directly, sparrish [at] jhuccp [dot] org.

Join our mailing list (if you’re not subscribed already) to be notified by email when the new site is live. You will also receive updates about other new products, services, and activities in the global family planning/reproductive health field.