Skeleton Screen

Background

ACC Accreditation Services provides digital tools to help medical facilities track performance data and pursue accreditation. These tools are accessed frequently by both internal review staff and external healthcare clients. Reliability and responsiveness are critical to ensuring a positive user experience.

Challenge

The tools were taking 25–40 seconds to load on average, regardless of service line. With no loading indicator present, users often assumed the tool was broken or unresponsive. This not only disrupted workflow but also impacted user trust and satisfaction.

Approach

• Conducted baseline load-time testing across internal and external users, including affected hospitals.
• Documented tool loading behavior under various conditions and configurations.
• Collaborated with developers and product stakeholders to troubleshoot the issue.
• Designed a skeleton screen UI to indicate that content was actively loading.
• Advised internal communications to inform users that performance would improve after the initial cache load.

Technical Solution

The development team discovered that each tool was executing redundant database queries for every load, severely impacting speed. Query memory was implemented to reduce this strain, and caching techniques were used to improve subsequent load times.

Results

• Average load time reduced significantly after the initial load.
• Skeleton screen UI provided clear feedback to users during loading, reducing perceived wait times and increasing user confidence.
• Internal and external user feedback indicated improved satisfaction and usability.