Transforming online user experience for multiple audiences

Go Higher West Yorkshire

Go Higher West Yorkshire is a partnership of 13 Higher Education (HE) providers that works together to reduce long-standing inequalities in access to, success in and progression from higher education for groups traditionally underrepresented in HE. They work with teachers, advisers, carers and employers, ultimately to ensure that young people are empowered to make confident and informed HE choices. By helping influencers help young people into HE, they are improving young people’s employability skills. In turn, helping inspire a more highly-skilled workforce.

Their existing website was cumbersome and the user journeys were complicated, so they briefed Bell to develop a better and more efficient user experience that takes people on comfortable, seamless journeys across their site, whilst also imparting key information and benefits in a clean, consistent and easy-to-access manner.

We began with a detailed website audit of every page, link and resource download (59 in total), which identifies that both the functionality of the brand and how they conveyed their brand and service offering required attention. Our audit recommended fully responsive layouts for all devices at all sizes, strong consistent page layouts with impactful imagery, prominent messages and logos, clear navigation without repetition or unnecessary layers, a more vibrant use of the carousel, amended text column widths for clarity, and adding introduction text to all pages, to better convey benefits and improve SEO performance.

We wrote a key proposition line for their main page carousel and key messaging for all sections, in a more accessible, benefit-led style. We also streamlined their resources into a three-portal model, removing any overlap and directly addressing: students & learners; teachers, carers & advisors; and business & employers. Our new information architecture model improved user experience by streamlining the number of pages and the number of clicks needed to reach the desired information. UX was also improved by cleaning the design of the pages and the graphic elements, such as employing consistent section sizes and imagery. We delivered a complete wireframe with all design elements and new content to their developer. The client reports increased engagement levels and a large amount of positive feedback from across their audience sectors.

“Bell are extremely proactive and professional in their approach to work, delivering projects to a consistently high standard. As an ongoing source of support towards our communications projects, Bell have supported our branding, comms strategy and website related projects to enhance user journey and support quality checking processes. They are a great team, always quick to respond, we highly recommend their services.”

John Hague, Area Manager
Go Higher West Yorkshire