2025 Best Healthcare Provider Website: Chu Vision Institute

This month it was announced that the Chu Vision Institute's new website, designed by Studio 3 and launched in March of this year, was recognized by the Web Marketing Association (WMA) with the 2025 WebAward for Best Healthcare Provider Website.

The WebAwards are one of the longest-running competitions in the industry, founded in 1997 and judged by independent panels of senior-level marketers and creative directors. Entries are scored across seven categories: design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copywriting, and ease of use. Winning “Best in Industry” means a project is considered by the judges to set a new benchmark.

For more than 25 years, Dr. Ralph Chu has been an industry leader in ophthalmology. His institute has performed over 150,000 procedures, participated in more than 100 FDA clinical trials, and his work has been featured in national media, including The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. Patients travel from across the country to Minneapolis to be treated by Dr. Chu and his team.

The New York Times best seller Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller is well known within creative marketing circles. Among its many principles is that in great storytelling, the client is the hero, not the company. The company should be the guide.

Dr. Ralph Chu’s institute embodies this philosophy. During the creative discovery process, it became clear that the Chu Vision brand is built more around its patients than its doctors. 

With Dr. Chu’s credentials, the obvious and safe choice would have been to put him front and center on the new website. Instead, the decision was made to tell the Chu Vision story through the eyes of patients, making them the heroes of the brand.

Studio 3’s Art Director, Jessie Flores, worked with designer Lucy Reitz to conceive the new Chu Vision website. The creative concept was atypical and a conservative medical practice might not have been comfortable with such a bold choice. To test the idea, Jessie and Lucy created an AI-assisted mock-up of the homepage and presented it to the Chu Vision team.

They loved it. The design centered visuals around patients and their journey, rather than doctors and medical credentials. That approval set the tone for the entire project.

Across the homepage and key procedure pages, custom animations took copy from blurry to clear for testimonials, procedure types, and other key content. Everything complemented the fold image of a dancer out of focus and then clear and striking.

Keeping with the focus on clients, Studio 3’s media team spent two days filming in Minneapolis. They interviewed six real patients of the institute and captured photography and video that now define the site. These voices and stories give the site warmth, credibility, and a real sense of what it feels like to regain one’s sight.

The WebAwards judge more than just looks. They consider the factors that go into search engine optimization and user experience. Testament to the fact that creativity relates to performance, within one month of the new chuvision.com website going live, the average organic ranking of its priority keywords jumped from #15 (the middle of page 2) into the top 3. Traffic to the new website increased 23 percent in the first month, and leads from the website rose 28 percent.

It goes without saying that Dr. Chu himself built the practice and brand values that are represented on the website. The institute's Practice Manager, Jodi Chu, and Executive VP of Operations, Carrie Jacobs, worked closely with the Studio 3 team through brand discovery, production of the video and photo shoot, content production, and ultimately the final award-winning website.

On the Studio 3 side, the creative team was led by Chief Creative Officer, Andres Cuero and Art Director, Jessie Flores. Key contributors included: Acey Dubow (Creative Director for Aesthetics), Davan Firinn (Media Producer), Kiley Graves (Assistant Producer), Lucy Reitz (Web Designer), Aaron Soto (Content Director), Stacey Harrison (Digital Marketing Manager), Chrissy Eason (Web Developer),  Catherine Machado (Assistant Web Developer)  and Whitney Phinyawatana (Creative Project Manager). 

Congratulations to one and all on this Best in Industry award!