Place2Be came to us to design a website to launch their new brand and meet the needs of their diverse audiences. The new site needed to support their long-term vision – that children in all schools nationwide have access to high quality, effective and evidence-based mental health support.
Place2Be are a leading children’s mental health charity, that work with schools across England, Scotland and Wales to provide support and training that enable them to better promote and support good mental health. They offer services that support children and young people experiencing a range of issues, and are a leading provider of specialist training to child counsellors.
WPNC helped us gain valuable audience insight and bring our refreshed brand to life.
Saul Levitt, Digital Manager
The new mobile first website needed to reflect Place2Be’s ambition and provide:
- Inspiring communication of Place2Be’s unique offering and impact.
- Promotion and sign-up of their in-school services
- Clear and easy registration for their range of counselling training
- A frictionless donation platform
In-depth discovery phase
We kicked off the redesign through a series of insight activities to ensure there was a full understanding of both the organisational objectives and the needs and expectations of their multiple user groups ranging from school staff to counselling trainees to supporters. The activities included:
- Analysis of existing site data and behaviours
- User and stakeholder surveys
- Stakeholder interviews
- User tests of the existing website and interviews
- Journey planning workshops
This insight was synthesised into user personas and multiple journey maps which formed the basis for prioritised requirements for the new site.
Goal orientated information architecture
Journey mapping informed the architecture of the site based on the goals of the three distinct audience groups. The mega-navigation menu with clear labelling means users can get to the exact content they need quickly. And clear signposting across the site ensures that users can find relevant content that forms the basis for typical user journeys.
Clarity of the training and placements offer
We designed new course and placement pages for Place2Be’s training offering that contain all the key information that users require before they make an application.
In-page navigation allows users to find the information they are seeking and get to the application process quickly. An interactive diagram was developed to show how each course fits into the journey towards becoming a school counsellor.
Demonstrating impact
The website plays a crucial role in helping people understand the impact of Place2Be’s work. Research showed that schools require hard statistics to support applications for funding so these have been introduced across the website and a new statistics and evidence section created.
Increasing donations
A key goal for the new site is to increase financial support for Place2Be. We have introduced a mobile optimised donation journey that has a sticky call to action in appropriate areas of the site, designed to prompt donations whilst users are engaged with Place2Be’s valuable work.
The donation journey itself uses our GoDonate product with best practice UX and digital payment wallets such as PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Launching a new brand online
Our approach
We bought our experience of working with charity brands, in various stages of their brand development, to work with Place2Be as they were going through an exciting rebrand. We had a lot of fun, helping them express new ideas, influence elements of the brand, and help make decisions as they looked to finalise their rebrand.
Our approach was a multi part process, including:
- An initial brand kick off with the team in order to get under the skin of where the rebrand was going.
- Gathering an understanding of the charity’s brand journey; where they’ve come from and where they want to go,
- Assessing how we and where we can bring that to life in the user journeys
Creative exploration
With that insight we began expressing the brand through a number of creative concepts. An energetic and vibrant brand like this, encourages lots of creative exploration whilst staying true to the information architecture and content hierarchy that had been established at the UX stage.
As the brand was in flux, we worked closely with the Place2Be team; in some instances seeing their brand brought to life enabled them to make some tough decisions on certain elements – all for the betterment of the overall brand experience.
Applying the brand
Once the creative approach was agreed, we then began applying this look to key pages across multiple devices: desktop, tablet, and mobile; we also explored animations and interactions in order to ensure the most engaging user experience possible. (show examples )
After the final design sign off, we provided guidance to the Place2Be’s development agency via a fully interactive style tile to ensure our creative vision was fully realised.
See the final site here: www.place2be.org.uk
