we are: London

Our mission was simple; quickly turn the NSPCC’s main site into an effective place to learn about child cruelty, support change, raise money and ultimately end child abuse in the UK.

Our approach

Before we started thinking about the redesign we talked to the end users through a mix of online true intent surveys, providing breadth, and one to one usability testing, providing depth.

Our consultants also spent a great deal of time working with the internal stakeholders to ensure we understood the direction of the business as well as the needs of the customer.

Turning insight into action

From the research we were able to create a clear picture of how the new site should work, keeping in mind the fact that the CMS would not change and much of the site copy would be refreshed but not rewritten.

Our design work was split into two distinct streams, information architecture and brand design.

Rapid prototypes

The information architecture (IA) team started by creating a number of quick paper prototypes, that were quickly worked up to low fidelity wireframes prototypes; all of which were reviewed with key stakeholders on a regular basis.

Brand design

Once the IA had reached a mid-point our visual design team took on the task of refreshing the online brand, in line with the existing NSPCC guidelines. Much of their effort was put into de-cluttering the layout, providing simpler visual clues to key areas of interaction and creating standards across the site from links and photos to templates and navigation.

Prototype to production

The final design phase saw us develop a high fidelity (fully designed) prototype that was used for sign off by the client and as a template for our front end developers to create the code for the CMS.

Working closely with the NSPCC’s own tech team and a pair of freelance Rhythmix experts, we set to the challenging task of integrating a new look with an old site, from navigation and templates to forms and functions.

Amazing results that speak for themselves

Firstly and most importantly the new website, launched earlier this summer, has lead to an eight-fold rise in online reporting to its Helpline about suspected child abuse.

In the month since the new look NSPCC website launched on 28 May, the NSPCC Helpline dealt with 209 online reports from people worried about a child - up from a previous monthly average of 25.

NSPCC digital communications manager Stephanie Hughes said:
“A key objective of the NSPCC website refresh was to provide people with engaging content, and ensure they could find what they were looking for with fewer clicks.

“Making sure everyone could access the NSPCC Helpline, encourage them to seek help and advice and report suspected child abuse, was top of the list.

“To make the Helpline easily accessible to all audiences we’ve placed prominent ‘Report a concern’ links and Helpline promotional units in the right hand column throughout the site, plus an NSPCC Helpline hero banner on the homepage”.

Stephanie Hughes continued:
“It’s important that people feel confident about reporting abuse, and that they are doing the right thing by contacting the NSPCC Helpline. To provide this reassurance all the Helpline pages feature clear, concise copy about how the service works and what happens when you report a concern.

“Overall, we’ve completely reviewed the NSPCC website user journey, to meet our audience’s needs as much as our business priorities, and the site is now fit to support donations, volunteering and campaigning too. Another key factor was to optimise the copy to make sure people would find us when concerned about a child.”

We could not have wished for a better result from our work on this important project.

And the thanks go to…

We worked tirelessly to make the site redesign successful, but we alone can not take all of the praise, we must also highlight the efforts of our client, who helped keep the project on track over time, make sense and rewrite much of the content and be there when we needed them to review and sign off on the project.

Visit the NSPCC website now and help make a difference.

A full press release can be found on the NSPCC PR website

Content strategy, Design, NSPCC, Research, User testing information architecture, Lab Research, Online surveys, user centred design

National Express has launched an innovative ‘low fare finder’ on their coach web page to make booking a £1 fare even easier for customers.

The National Express coach website receives over 60k visitors everyday, with a journey booked every eight seconds. The coach operator was aware that in a competitive market the customer’s time is precious and the new booking system needed to offer unbeatable value at the touch of a button.

The new booking system will simplify the booking process for customers, who can immediately access a calendar of low cost fares for over 180 routes without having to search through multiple booking pages.

The low fare finder has been developed by web usability specialists we are: london who were briefed to create a booking system which would make it truly simple for National Express’ customers to find their lowest fares.

Chris Averill, Managing Director, from we are: london, said:

“We have been working with National Express to create a booking system which is simple and transparent, meaning customers don’t need to search for £1 fares, they simply let the fare finder do the work for them.

Before developing the new system we undertook extensive research to understand who National Express’ customers were and what they wanted from online booking. The low fare finder provides simple, quick pricing across their most popular routes, making it easy for customers to find the best offer available. It is a sophisticated and stylish booking experience which is designed with customer ease in mind.”

Kevin Milnes, Head of E commerce for National Express, said:

“We set out to create a booking system with unrivalled simplicity and ease of use. The low fare finder delivers a wide range of £1 fares to the customer quickly and easily giving them the choice of when and where they want to travel within seconds.

The system has been built with the future in mind and we intend to build and expand upon the fare finder moving forwards. We believe this system is leading the UK transport industry when it comes to delivering simple, value fares online. Whether our customers are looking for a specific journey at a set time or want inspiration for a day out or ‘staycation’ our website delivers the best value fares to over 1,000 destinations across the UK. ”

National Express released 250,000 £1 fares across all routes to and from London. For more information or to make a booking visit http://www.nationalexpress.com/springcoachfares.aspx

Coaches, Design, National Express, Portal, Research

Objective

The FSA wanted to create a website for young adults that provided information on everything from how to pay for university to buying a car and that could also direct users to other reputable sources of financial information.

The key concern was that everything from the look and feel to the brand and URL (whataboutmoney.info) appealed to the youth audience.

The Project

we are: london led the user research on the project, and our involvement encompassed the branding, right through to the development and final build of the site. Our usability team ran the following services:

• Recruitment - crucial to the success of the project was recruiting the right audience for the FSA. This was an extremely complex and difficult audience to reach but by using our national database of market research participants we secured up to fourty 16-25 year olds who possessed the specific attitudes and experiences needed for the project.
• Focus groups - we are: london ran focus groups across the country where we presented a series of brand concepts to the audience in order to obtain immediate feedback on the appeal and preferences. This provided essentail feedback for all agencies involved - directing us on everything from site naming, taxonomy, tone of voice and layouts.
• Usability lab - Our team put together a clickable prototype for the site and held a series of one-to-one interviews at our facilities in London. This phase of the project clarified taxonomy, content requirements and also the best format for presenting information to this audience. The findings from this testing were fed into the final iteration of the IA.
• Expert review – Once the IA had been finalised we are: research conducted an indepth best practice review of the site. This ensured site-wide consistency as well as making sure that it was accessible and in compliance with the W3C standards.

Outcome

This comprehensive and iterative approach to user research throughout the project lifecycle ensured that the site both resonated and appealed to the youth audience.

COI, FSA, Research Accessibility review, Card sorting, Focus groups, Lab Research, Qualitative research