Joel Graham

Background

I was tasked with creating a website for a service as part of the NHS and council, to help residents become fitter and live a healthier lifestyle. The service would allow users to self refer themselves and book group sessions with coaches to focus on either losing weight or quitting smoking.

The service covered East Riding in Yorkshire, where the population are faced with the highest level of poverty in the United Kingdom. This included low incomes, high unemployment, poor health, high levels of crime and low educational achievement.

Kick off

I began with hosting a kickoff session, to understand the background behind the service.

The session invovled UX, PMs, marketing and delivery to ensure everyone was the same page.

The key takeaways that I wanted to achieve included:

What is the problem?
Why does the problem exist?
Who would be the target audience?
Where is this service focused?
When does the website need to be released?

Understanding our users

I conducted user research using information gathered from the UK government, on statistics for East Riding.

The general information I gathered included:

A majority of residents being over the age of 65
An equal split of genders.
95% of the population being classed as white

The health information I gathered included:

More adults being overweight than the UK average
More adults smoke compared to the UK average, with an emphasis on smoking post delivery of a child
A significant consumption of alcohol compared to the UK average

Competitor research

I also looked at competitor research, using the competitors that the team fed back on the kick-off call.

One of the issues we faced was that the competitor websites were very basic, as many were simple landing pages from local councils talking about the services they provide.

One You Linconshire was the closest competitor, due to the similarities in service offerings, as well as a custom build website to get inspiration from.

User flows

I set up user flows, working with the service team, to understand how the users flow through the service.

We mapped out the whole flow, starting from the user receiving marketing material, all the way through to booking their session.

We worked closely with the operations team to ensure we did not miss any steps.

Understanding the service operation

We also mapped out all the different scenarios behind the scenes with the service.

This included how internal teams communicate with the users, whether by email, SMS or phone call.

This allowed us to make sure our communication channels were consistant with the website, and provided a seemless user experience.

Information Architecture

I hosted further additional calls to map out the information architecture/sitemap.

We designed this in Miro, allowing different people to go in and provide their feedback.

This collaboration allowed us to get a deeper understanding of what would be needed on each page, as well as break down each page into components needed.

Wireframes

I began to design wireframes, building out the different components that would be on each page.

The wireframes were then presented to the team, in order to get initial feedback and discuss any issues.

As we were against a tight deadline, we did not get the chance to test the site with users. Therefor, I prototyped the wireframes and got members of the internal teams to test out the website and provide key feedback.

High Fidelity

I then used the wireframes as a template to build out the high fidelity designs.

As I had already built the component library, this made this step easier, as it meant most of the pages could be completed within a day.

Once the designs were completed, another call was put in to present them to the team and get further feedback. We could also begin to sign off pages that the team were happy with.

We used an external agency to develop the site. I worked closely with them to make sure the website functioned as I envisioned it, as well as being a point of contact for any issues.