In sprint 0, the stay up to date section on the homepage was split into two - latest news and updates and mandatory tasks. These two sections were positioned side-by-side in tables.
Highlighting the mandatory tasks section
During user research, users consistently told us that they wanted to know what mandatory tasks they had to complete. This is a key user need, but in the existing design, more weight was given to the latest news and updates section as this was larger and was featured on the left-hand side of the pages.
To highlight mandatory tasks, we moved this section to the top of the page, so it is the first thing users see below the heading.
We also moved the deadline to the left side of the table, so it is the first item in the table. Previously, the deadline was under the title but users told us they wanted to see the deadline first.
Refining the news and updates section
As we moved the mandatory tasks section to the top of the page, this meant the news and updates section moved below mandatory tasks.
We also changed the title of this section, from latest news and updates, to latest updates. When we originally put this section together, we looked at a small section of content and defined this as 'news and updates'. After looking at a wider range of content suitable for this section, we refined the title to latest updates. Having 'news' in the title was misleading as the section didn't contain any typical news stories.
Finally, we moved the published on date from under the title, to above the title, to make it more prominent.
Cutting down on content
In sprint 0, we kept the introductory sentences beneath the H1 and the title stay up to date above the updates section.
However, after we iterated the homepage to make the mandatory tasks more prominent, the introductory text was redundant as the sections were clearer and had more self-explanatory titles.
Removing the introductory text also meant the most important information moved further up the page.
How the new layout tested
In the latest round of user testing the iterated stay up to date section tested really well. The cleaner design meant users could more easily navigate around the page and had a better understanding of what each section was about.
In subsequent research on this design, users validated that the deadline is the thing they want to know first.