One You and Every Mind Matters
In the realm of mental well-being, "One You" and "Every Mind Matters" stand as prominent digital tools designed to aid individuals in managing their physical and psychological well-being.
I had the privilege of working at a distinguished digital agency that Public Health England and the NHS commissioned. The remit was to craft a mobile-centric web platform with an adaptable infrastructure, which would empower PHE with their DCT (data collection tool) to cater to evolving campaign necessities adeptly and to potential shifts in strategy.
As the sole UX Designer, I was responsible for meeting the stipulated brief and conceiving a website that possessed the agility to assimilate future alterations and varied campaign specifications. A key objective was to enhance the user experience substantially.
Our collaborative team comprised 2 Project Owners, 2 Delivery Managers, a User Researcher engaged for a month-long period, myself as the UX Designer, 2 Content Designers, 4 Developers, and a Tester.
Desk Research
Upon joining the team, my first task was to thoroughly secure all the existing data from Public Health England and the NHS, which included both numbers and more detailed insights. I quickly got to grips with this data, pinpointing our target users, understanding what they need, expect, and worry about in relation to the online tool we're developing.
What I found was quite revealing. Our users clearly didn't want anything that felt like a formal training session or was loaded with medical terms or overly complex language. Instead, they were drawn to educational but engaging content. They wanted practical advice and clear guidelines that they could easily apply to improve their mental and physical health.
Additionally, they favoured positive and encouraging messages as part of the 'One You' experience. They were interested in content that would not only educate but also inspire them, leading to real insights and motivating them to maintain positive changes in their behaviour. This understanding gave me a clear and insightful direction for creating a user experience that was not only functional but also emotionally engaging for our audience.
User Interviews
In my first month on the project, I worked closely with a User Research Manager, who, sadly, would later leave the team. Together, we visited Manchester and Coventry, aiming to validate the initial research done by our client. Our goal was to check if the insights we had matched up with what users were actually experiencing and expecting.
During these user interviews, we discovered a complex mix of feelings. Users weren't overtly unhappy with the digital platform, but they weren't particularly excited about it either. It was clear that the platform hadn't yet offered any real benefits or appealing features that truly connected with our users.
After the fieldwork, the User Research Manager and I got together to break down our findings into useful insights. We ended up with a deeper understanding of the users' struggles. First, we saw that the platform's navigation was lacking, which was affecting user engagement and satisfaction. Second, we noticed a strong link between high stress levels, busy lifestyles, and unhealthy habits in our user group. This trio of issues gave us a clearer direction to think about and ultimately provide a more effective and user-focused digital experience.
Design Process
Leveraging my expertise in user experience design and stakeholder management, I successfully orchestrated two distinct workshops with key product owners and stakeholders. The initial session was designed around a comprehensive retrospective mapping exercise aimed at scrutinising existing pain points and inefficiencies in the user's current journey. The subsequent workshop extended this analysis by deploying a prospective map, enabling us to proactively identify potential roadblocks and areas for improvement in the next stages of development.
I synthesized the collected insights into a well-defined user journey map from these collaborative endeavours. Drawing upon this foundation, I meticulously crafted a site map prioritising intuitive navigation and user-centric design principles. Although the client strongly agreed with my initial design, certain amendments were later made to align the final output with organizational policy requirements. Nonetheless, the iterative process significantly informed our strategy and resulted in a robust, user-focused framework that could adapt to both user needs and policy constraints.
Sketches
In light of the comprehensive findings from the workshops, coupled with the stringent organisational policies and specific content mandates provided, I was presented with a multifaceted challenge: to reconcile these diverse considerations while maintaining a platform that was not just functional but exceptionally user-friendly. Utilising my expertise in UX design and problem-solving acumen, I methodically deconstructed these competing variables to identify common ground and synergies.
Adhering to a user-centred design approach, I rigorously iterated on the platform's interface, validating each design decision against user personas, journey maps, and policy directives. I employed a variety of UX methodologies, including A/B testing, usability studies, and heuristic evaluations, to quantitatively and qualitatively validate my solutions.
Despite the complex web of requirements and constraints, I successfully engineered a platform that complied with the policy, integrated the requisite content, and offered an optimised, intuitive user experience. This accomplishment was a testament to the adaptive, solutions-oriented mindset I bring to UX design challenges, ensuring seamless alignment between user needs, organisational goals, and regulatory frameworks.
Lo-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity prototypes
Navigating the intricate balance between user needs and client demands represented merely the initial hurdle. Subsequent challenges emerged in the form of stringent aesthetic constraints dictated by a government style guide, a novel element to my professional experience. Further complicating this was the stipulated colour palette, limited to merely two hues beyond black and white, which posed a substantial design challenge in creating an engaging, intuitive interface.
Leveraging my UX and UI design expertise, I undertook a methodical approach to reconcile these seemingly disparate elements. I employed principles of colour psychology and visual hierarchy to maximize the utility and impact of the restricted palette. Despite the limitations, the result was an aesthetically pleasing design that did not compromise functionality or user engagement.
To ensure that the evolving needs of both the user and the client were continually met, I adopted an agile approach characterised by iterative sprints. Throughout this process, regular updates from the development team served as crucial checkpoints for refining the design. I instituted a robust feedback loop, which involved comprehensive testing with a diverse user base, both internally within the organisation and externally; this enabled real-time adaptation to user behaviour and preferences, ensuring the site's design continually evolved in a user-centric direction.
The final platform not only adhered to the stringent guidelines but also triumphantly met, and often exceeded, the expectations and requirements of both the users and the client. This achievement epitomizes my capability to creatively synthesize various design constraints into a unified, practical solution, all while maintaining rigorous adherence to user experience best practices.