A Chronic Pain Population's First Web Platform

Small Fiber Neuropathy is a chronic pain disorder that is frequently misdiagnosed and poorly understood, even by specialists. The existing neuropathy foundation website covered too many conditions to go deep on any one of them. Patients with SFN were left to piece together information from academic papers, Reddit threads, and general chronic pain forums. None of those resources were built for them, and none were trustworthy enough to rely on when making decisions about their care.

Research what would serve the SFN community online. Understand what barriers kept patients from finding trustworthy information. Figure out whether information architecture or trust signals were the limiting factor. Do this on a non-profit budget, in two months, without dedicated engineering resources.

Direct patient research combined with specialist partnerships that revealed trust was the core unmet need. Research findings shaped product priorities: specialist-reviewed content with visible credibility signals, community as the first interaction, and feedback buttons on every page turning users into an ongoing research panel.

SFN patients are not casual browsers. They are people managing a serious, often invisible condition. They have frequently been dismissed by doctors, given conflicting information, and left to research on their own. They were not looking for more content to sort through. They needed one trusted resource built specifically around their condition, and one did not exist.

I ran research in two phases: direct patient outreach to surface unmet needs in their own words, and specialist partnerships to understand how to translate research findings into trustworthy content. Both were non-negotiable for a healthcare product, and especially for one serving a community that had been let down by health information online before.

I went directly to the main SFN subreddit for candid feedback on the existing broader neuropathy foundation website, recruiting research participants from a community that already trusted each other. What was missing, what was frustrating, and what patients actually needed that no resource was providing.

Rather than assume what was missing, I went to where patients already gathered and asked them directly. Going to an existing community gives you unfiltered, honest responses from people with real stakes in the answer, and it costs nothing but the time it takes to be respectful when you show up.

From the research findings, I identified a critical insight: visible expert endorsement would be the key to shifting how patients felt about the platform. I worked with the team to recruit leading SFN neurologists to review all medical content before launch and designed their bylines into the page itself, turning expert review into a visible credibility signal users could see at a glance.

Given how strongly patients expressed the need for verification and felt about accuracy in the research interviews, I needed to make credibility visible and verifiable. A disclaimer at the bottom of a page is easy to ignore. A named specialist byline at the top of every article is not, and research showed it would address the core trust barrier.

Every product decision was grounded in a specific research finding. The goal was a platform that felt calm, credible, and easy to navigate for someone who is already exhausted, one that earned trust before a user had read a single sentence, because research had shown that was the barrier that mattered most.

I researched color psychology in healthcare contexts and chose a dark purple-blue palette backed by peer-reviewed research [1][2][3]. The range communicates calm, credibility, and seriousness without feeling cold or clinical. For an audience that has been misled before, color is not cosmetic, it is the first signal of whether a site is worth trusting. This choice was research-informed rather than aesthetic.

Research revealed that several users described moments of crisis and isolation. Links to mutual aid resources were placed prominently on the homepage so users in urgent situations could find help without navigating through content sections first. This was a direct response to a pattern in user interviews: people come to SFN information platforms in moments of stress, not curiosity. Immediate help had to come before navigation.

I added a visible feedback button at the bottom of every information page. Within a non-profit budget, this was the most scalable research method available, and it worked. 340+ submissions in 90 days turned passive readers into an ongoing research panel, no recruiting budget required, and gave the foundation a permanent feedback loop after I rolled off the project. What looked like a feature was actually continuous research.

Research interviews revealed two distinct trust mechanisms in the patient community: clinical credibility (expert bylines prove accuracy) and peer validation (other patients prove it's real and survivable). Patient testimonials were featured alongside specialist-reviewed content deliberately to address both. Clinical credibility from experts tells users the information is accurate. Peer testimonials tell them someone else has lived through the same experience. Both are trust signals, but they serve different emotional needs that research had uncovered.

Research revealed that SFN patients often describe their symptoms in lay terms, not clinical language. I designed a search filtering UI that ranks results by relevance and accepts lay terminology, surfacing the most useful content first without requiring users to know the exact clinical terminology for what they are experiencing. This was a direct response to research findings: a search experience that meets patients in their own language reduces friction and prevents the dead ends that drive users off health platforms entirely.

The platform launched in two months and immediately became the go-to resource for the SFN community. Web traffic climbed 38% from the content architecture informed by research. The support group grew 718% in month one, from 11 to 90 members. The feedback system collected 340+ submissions in the first 90 days, giving the foundation a direct line to what patients needed next, long after I rolled off. Growth that steep comes from research being right about what people actually needed.

This project reinforced something I now apply to every engagement: research into what someone needs is the foundation for whether they will actually use what you build. The users were not casual visitors. They were people managing a serious chronic condition, often frustrated, often skeptical, and looking for something they could actually rely on. Every shortcut I might have taken on a typical project felt unacceptable here, and the work was better for it because research set the bar.

I would have invested more time in video interviews with people actively living with SFN. Survey responses and Reddit comments gave useful directional signal, but watching someone describe their experience in person builds a different kind of empathy than reading a text response. That understanding would have sharpened several decisions earlier. The biggest insight I'd carry forward: for health platforms, trust is not a feature, it is the foundation. Every design choice either builds or undermines it. Specialist bylines, cited sources, peer validation, plain language, immediacy in moments of crisis: these were not aesthetics. They were research findings translated into product decisions. And a non-profit budget forced feedback-by-design, which produced richer ongoing insight than any one-time research sprint.

Research and references cited throughout this case study.