Understanding the user need
I need to know what support is available to me and what it involves, so that I can decide if it will be beneficial to me.
Users want to feel supported and confident as they take their first steps towards a career in teaching. It's important that we surface the right information at the right time, as research and data has shown that our users have more chance of making successful applications when they interact with our support services.
We recently updated our website footer to remove the ‘Talk to us’ section that previously promoted our adviser service. Instead, we now show consistent contact options - our call centre phone number and webchat across all pages.
The ‘Talk to us’ component had only been used on selected pages and often duplicated information already shown through other promotional components. This inconsistency made things harder to manage and potentially confusing for users.
Designing flexible components
We set out to redesign our promotional components to better meet user needs and make components easier to maintain. Previously, we were managing over 40 separate component files, which was only increasing as we filled content gaps. This approach was not scalable.
Our aim was to:
- consolidate repeated components into single, reusable files
- dynamically update content based on context and user need
- reduce maintenance overhead while increasing consistency
A new system of components
We created a new set of 7 promotional and 3 navigational components. These can be mixed and matched depending on where the user is in their journey.
We’ve kept styling consistent with our existing design language:
- yellow indicates support services
- green is used for links to other services
- blue highlights core content areas
- pink is reserved for inspirational content
This colour-coding helps users quickly identify the type of content they’re engaging with, improving usability across the site.
Tracking and performance
Each new component has a unique tracking code, allowing us to monitor usage and performance via our Looker Studio dashboards. This will help us understand what’s working well and where we might need to iterate further.
What’s next
We’ll continue reviewing where and how these components are used to ensure we’re meeting user needs and making it as easy as possible for people to take their next steps into teaching.