FSA - What About Money website
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
FSA - What About Money website
What About Money website
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; What About Money.
we are:london was enlisted by the FSA to provide usability and accessibility services from the very inception of the Whataboutmoney? site. This involvement from the beginning of the project ensured that users were consulted and considered right from the initial brand conception stage all the way through to the final HTML build, which ensured that the site is credible, appealing and functional.
The Project
The target user group were consulted right from the very start of the project. We ran focus groups and iterative user testing labs, and for each of these services we carefully selected respondents who were representative of the potential site users. Here is an outline of the services that we provided over the course of the project:
- Focus groups– we presented two brand concepts to four different groups (two in London and two in Glasgow). All groups followed a similar format with participants encouraged to feedbacktheir thoughts on the designs and brands as well as contribute their own ideas. The end result was a report which summarised the brand direction that the site should be aiming at;
- Lab-based testing – once the wire frames had been finalised and the structure of the site confirmed, we ran a series of one-to-one interviews at our labs in Battersea. During these sessions users were asked to explore the site, undertaking specific scenario based tasks, which would assess the intuitiveness of the navigation and taxonomy. Our report highlighted some areas which required minor changes in order to provide the best and most natural user experience. It also recommended that the homepage design be revised in order to make the messaging about the site’s target audience as clear as possible;
- Homepage design review – once the homepage design had been reviewed we re-tested it with a sample of 12 users. Each participant was asked to look at the design and feedback their initial impressions; telling us whom they thought the site was aimed at and what it was about. This testing proved that the messaging was now clear after the design revisions, and that those aged from 16 all the way through to 25 could find content that they felt was directly aimed at them;
- Expert review – as part of our service provision, we also conducted an expert review, offering advice on how to make the site even more intuitive for the users;
- Accessibility review – in order to ensure that the site was accessible, we conducted a review of the site and advised the teams on how it could be made W3C AA compliant; and
- UAT– because of our understanding of the site as well as our experience in UAT, we were asked to conduct a full test of the site. UAT took three weeks and allowed us to fully review the site and ensure that all bugs and issues were resolved prior to launch.
The key concern for the FSA was that everything from the look and feel to the brand and site URL appealed to young people. The diverse range of services used on this project has ensured that the target audience were thoroughly consulted. We seldom work with a client who has such an appreciation and understanding of the user’s needs and this comprehensive approach guarantees that the site will provide the user with a good experience.
COI, FSA, Research
Accessibility review, Expert review, Focus groups, Lab Research, UAT
