Inspiring Radiologists of the Future with ACR Redesign
Overview
To mark its 100th anniversary, the American College of Radiology® (ACR®) engaged Velir to redesign its website and align it with the organization’s mission. ACR asked Velir to boost traffic, SEO, and member engagement for the site, simplify its complex information architecture, prioritize high-value content, and craft a user-first design for a modernized experience powered by Sitecore XM Cloud.
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Challenge
In anticipation of its centennial in 2023, ACR aimed to redesign its website to reflect new branding and a bold mission: Inspire the Radiologists of the Future. However, its existing site posed numerous challenges to accomplishing those goals. The site became an unwieldy repository of over 6,000 pages, structured around internal departments rather than user needs. Navigation was overly complicated, with 7 primary categories and 78 subcategories, making it difficult for members to find relevant information, so they often resorted to Google searches to locate content on ACR’s site.
The site was also hindered by fewer than 12 templates, a limited component library, inconsistent mobile functionality, an ineffective search powered by Coveo, and a lack of ADA compliance. In addition to addressing these critical issues, ACR sought to improve SEO, drive traffic, increase engagement, and simplify content discovery through a streamlined information architecture, enhanced search strategy, and robust personalization opportunities post‑launch.
To evaluate the best path forward, ACR partnered with Velir to conduct a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis comparing an on‑premises setup with a migration to Sitecore XM Cloud — paving the way for a more agile, user-centric digital platform.
ACR’s challenges included:
- Streamlining content findability: Complex navigation and internal structure made it difficult for members to access what they needed, frustrating them and reducing engagement.
- Building a more flexible platform: Limited templates and poor mobile support blocked ACR from delivering a seamless, modern experience across devices.
- Remediating search and accessibility: Ineffective search and a lack of ADA compliance hindered content discovery and excluded key audiences.
Approach
To address ACR’s complex digital challenges and support its mission to “Inspire the Radiologists of the Future,” Velir modernized ACR’s member experience while helping to streamline internal operations. Our approach prioritized removing digital barriers, driving deeper user engagement, and delivering a content-first, brand-aligned experience built for personalization and long-term scalability.
Throughout a robust discovery phase, we conducted stakeholder and audience interviews, technical assessments, and prototype testing. These insights informed a reimagined information architecture centered on user behavior, not internal structure, and supported the creation of a flexible, component-rich design system.
Our technical evaluation and TCO analysis led to a strategic recommendation to migrate to Sitecore XM Cloud. The platform offered significant advantages: cloud-native scalability, faster time-to-market, reduced maintenance overhead, and built-in support for personalization and headless architecture. XM Cloud provided ACR with a future-proof solution that could evolve alongside member needs while enabling its teams to work more efficiently and iteratively.
Velir collaborated closely with ACR in a co-development model, ensuring the final site reflected ACR’s modernized brand and empowered ongoing digital evolution.
Our approach included:
- Modernizing the member experience through user-driven IA, improved content strategy, expanded components, and a mobile- and accessibility-friendly design.
- Recommending and supporting migration to Sitecore XM Cloud to deliver a scalable, flexible, and future-ready platform with built-in personalization and faster deployment.
- Developing a strategic roadmap to shift from infrequent redesigns to continuous, quarterly enhancements that fuel long-term digital growth.
Solution
ACR’s website transformation marked a decisive shift from an overwhelming digital “filing cabinet” of 6,500+ pages to a streamlined, member-first experience. The redesign tackled their core challenges — an overly complex IA with 78 subcategories, poor search functionality, and inaccessible content — by completely reimagining the site structure and experience strategy.
With Sitecore XM Cloud as the foundation, ACR now benefits from a scalable, cloud-native platform that supports modular content creation, headless architecture, and future-ready personalization. A full content overhaul reduced page volume by over 75%, while behavioral data and user testing informed a simplified navigation and accessible, action-oriented language that reflects how members seek information.
ACR’s transformation sparked a cultural shift — from a reactive, siloed presence to a nimble, insight-driven platform. Internal teams now have greater ownership, clarity, and governance, supported by a flexible design system and a champion group of real users who helped shape the outcome.
The impact of our work was immediate and measurable in just two months post-launch:
- 283,000 unique visitors and 1.2M+ pageviews
- +43% downloads year-over-year (YoY)
- +49% completion rate going from View Item to Purchase for mobile users
- +34% user interactions YoY
- +19% average session duration for users who interacted with site search
- +186% video plays YoY and 2.5 plays per user
“The new website looks amazing! It's very easy to navigate and has a nice, streamlined interface. I was exploring the Resident and Fellows Section and even found some "new" (to me) resources that were probably already there before, but now are super easy to find and more accessible. The medical student section also looks great — everything a member would need on the main page, so they don't have to click around as much.”