We’ve been working with Royal Holloway University to bring their digital offering up to scratch.
Following a user-centred design methodology, and working with our internal Human Understanding Lab, we undertook a rapid but robust customer insight research programme, to truly understand the needs of all types of students (undergrad, postgrad, mature, foreign) as well as the needs of internal users, the copywriters, professors, etc.). With this understanding, we were able to design ideal user journeys around the core tasks for each audience, and in turn define a dynamic information architecture which could extend to upcoming needs the university had.
We took a modular approach to the design, allowing for scale both in the site as a whole and in pages over time, minimising the number of required templates for ease of management, but creating dynamic rulesets to allow maximum flexibility for content within the experience.
Working sprint-based, we designed page templates while allowing the output to populate and evolve a design system.
The design system itself gave us a kit of parts, which could be used to aggregate into pages,providing consistent expression and interaction, which is good for the user and great for development and ongoing maintenance. The design system is built in the native Sketch design tool,and annotated in a content-agnostic manner to optimise design time and development consistency.
Integral to this design system was an entirely new brand expression for the university, a more modern expression (visually, language and navigational and informational expression) of the university. Adhering to above WACG 2.1 AA standards, it forms a system with ongoing integrity, audience appropriateness and compliance.