Overview
When we started this project we were responding to a need for a unification of all government careers and training resources. The landscape was confused and spread across a myriad of departments and agencies. Our task was to bring it all together in one place. I was the design lead on this project from Discovery to Live.
User Needs
"As a young person or adult considering my career, I need a trusted resource that can signpost me to all the gov information about jobs, training and education."
Action
After a thorough discovery we realised that our two main user groups were young people and adults, and that they had different but overlapping needs. Needs from other user groups including parents, careers advisers and teachers were captured but deprioritised.
I kicked off Alpha with an "How Might We" ideation session, enouraging psychological safety to get the best and boldest ideas from the group.
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Once an idea had been chosen we starting testing with users. As the lead designer I was in charge of building prototypes and working with researchers to iterate them in Beta.
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I worked with developers in the run up to Live, eventually launching in October 2024.
Challenges
In order to unify all government resources it meant decommissioning lots of different sites after absorbing their content into our 'single starting point'. This caused a lot of upset for the teams responsible for those sites. I had to ensure that all stakeholder groups felt that their voice was heard and we used the colours from the largest stakeholder, National Careers Service to ensure that they felt their identity wasn't being discarded.
Result
The site boasts a AAA accessibility rating. One month after launch, the site had been bookmarked 148k times, had an engagement rate of 86% from 1.2 mil sessions (compared to the GOV.UK average of 44%) and was nominated for a Secretary of State award for government initiatives that help children and young people.
