Trap 01
Too spa-like
Calming visuals, vague language. Feels safe but builds no confidence in someone booking fertility treatment.
Branding · web
Josephine Cerqua Acupuncture
Brand and web identity for a specialist London practice. Calm, considered, precise.
01 The Challenge
Most wellness sites follow the wrong path.
Acupuncture sites often fall into two categories, but neither quite fits. Josephine’s site needed to be welcomming and expert at the same time.
Trap 02
Too clinical
Credible on paper. Intimidating in practice. Patients feel assessed, not welcomed.
02 Discovery
Questions visitors are asking.
For someone booking acupuncture for the first time, the decision is emotional. Three questions need answering before anything else matters:
01
“Can you help with my issue?”
Visitors arrive with a specific problem. If the site doesn’t signal relevant expertise within seconds, they leave.
02
“Will I feel safe and listened to?”
Acupuncture involves physical contact and personal health topics. Trust is built through tone and language, not credentials alone.
03
“What happens and what does it cost?”
Small practical uncertainties stop people booking even when they’ve decided they want to.
This shaped the whole experience: instead of just explaining acupuncture, the site is designed to ease uncertainty at every step.
03 Information Architecture
Every page has one job.
Page 01
Home
Introduce the core promise. Orient quickly. Book Appointment CTA always visible.
Page 02
About
Build credibility and human connection. 20+ years’ experience as a story, not a CV.
Page 03
Acupuncture
Answer “what actually happens?” Initial Consultation → Collaborative Approach → Treatment.
Page 04
Women’s Health
Fertility, Pregnancy, Menopause as distinct routes. Different language and urgency for each.
Page 05
Appointments
Remove every practical friction point. Fees transparent. Location explained upfront.
Page 06
Supervision
Separate audience, separate story. Own value proposition, own language, own CTA.
04 Key UX Decisions
Building trust through the site.
Pattern
“What to Expect” removes a category of anxiety
The Acupuncture page presents the session as a predictable sequence: Initial Consultation → Collaborative Approach → Treatment. It turns an unknown, potentially intimidating experience into something safe.
IA
Fertility, Pregnancy and Menopause are separate routes
Not a single “Women’s Health” page. Three distinct routes because the language, emotional register, and urgency are completely different for each.
Friction
The Appointments page is an anxiety removal exercise
What to do before arriving. How fees work. How location works (address provided after booking, as she works from home). These are the exact questions that stop someone who’s decided to book from actually booking.
Audience
Supervision is a separate product, not an add-on
Practitioners need a completely different experience from patients. Different emotional register, different value proposition, different CTA.
05 Visual Design
Design system.
The design system reinforces the same message as the content: calm, inclusive, and safe. Colour, typography, buttons, and inputs all carry the same emotional register, warm without being vague, clinical without being cold.
06 Ethical Design
Cultural design decissions
Cultural appropriation review
We explored Chinese lettering as a brand element. During review we recognised the risk of aesthetic borrowing: using a language visually without cultural authorship or validation. For a practice built on trust, that risk was not worth a visual shortcut. We chose not to use it.
Long-term brand integrity over a short-term visual shortcut.
07 What I Learned
Clarity is a form of care.
01
A calm experience does the same work as credentials.
In wellbeing services, every unnecessary word, every ambiguous label, every unanswered practical question is friction that costs a real booking.
02
Trust is built through repetition.
What to expect, transparent fees, consistent CTAs. The same reassurance pattern across every page reduces anxiety without the user noticing.
03
The strongest design move is sometimes what you don’t use.
Choosing not to proceed with Chinese lettering was an ethical decision that protected long-term brand integrity over a short-term visual cue.