Why we created a campaign style page
The aim of the campaign style page is to drive users to the Get Help Buying for Schools service. As a non-mandatory service in direct competition with commercial procurement services, we want a place to show schools the benefits of using this service over others, for example, that we’re government-run, impartial and offer completely free advice and support to schools throughout their procurement process.
There is a business need to attract schools to use the service. We know from user research and anecdotal evidence that some schools get taken advantage of by unscrupulous consultants and suppliers. We want to make sure that we stop this from happening by persuading schools that we are a trustworthy source of help who can give them better service and greater value.
Schools need to clearly see why we are the better choice. They need to see what the benefits are of using our service and to be able to compare us with the competition, and to decide if ours is right for them.
We bet that a page with a more promotional-led approach to visual design and language will help schools make these comparisons more easily.
The aim is to address why schools should use us compared to a commercial, paid-for service. It will then signpost users to the right part of the service if they want more information.
The current intent of the page is to build awareness of the service, even before schools need to buy anything. It’s there to set the scene, giving users a picture of what to expect, what the GHBS service provides as a whole.
We were not able to use GOV.UK to do this, because the purpose of GOV.UK is not to sell a service to schools. GOV.UK content is focused on getting users to do the task at hand – it is task oriented.
Schools need to be able to see this information whenever they need help, and they will always need help at different points of the year, every year. The offer of our services is not time limited, and the content is not specific to a particular period of time. For example, help with the cost of living, or help with the cost of energy, where it is expected that the service being provided will come to a natural end.
What we did to create a campaign style page
Balancing the needs
We're experimenting with a campaign style page to give users the information they need to understand the value of GHBS and how it can help them in short digestible snippets, because School Buying Professionals have told us over and over again that they don’t have time.
We carefully considered the user's needs and how we balance that with the business's need.
To make sure the focus of the page was correct, we started with what users told us they needed based on user research, which pointed to the need for better management of our user’s expectations. Users also wanted to know more about the service and what it offers.
After testing this with users and taking on board their feedback, we started to look at the business needs and how that might change the way we prioritise or frame the content.
Getting the content right
In a series of workshops, we looked at content priority, existing and assumed user needs, user stories and competitor analysis.
We redrafted the content of the page to bring it in line with the tone and style of the Schools Commercial service, as well as competing services, being careful to make sure that the content was always factual and related back to user needs and the work on competitor analysis.
We wanted to highlight the reasons why users should choose our service and the difference of our service compared to our competitors.
We maintained a direct and reassuring style, and wanted to bring surety and conviction to the service we are providing.
While we wanted the content to grasp the user's interest, we also try to stay as closely to the GDS content guidelines as possible to ensure that it is accessible.
Getting the Interaction right
The first iteration
There have been 2 iterations of the design for this page. Although the first design met the requirements of the brief, the feedback from stakeholders was that it needed to be more visually impactful to appear ‘more attractive’ to potential prospects. In comparison, landing pages of competitor websites use colour, videos and images to complement the written content, and to help users quickly identify the subject matter as they scroll down the page.
School business professionals provided similar sentiments during a feedback session for the first design. Comments such as 'too much text for me’, ‘not enough time to read reams of text’, and ‘I prefer to skim, and go off bullet points’, made it clear that we needed to reduce and break up the text into smaller chunks adding complimentary images to help improve visual impact.
The second iteration
We used the outputs from the design requirements workshop, and user feedback from the first iteration, to help inform the design of the second iteration.
We started with a design exploration to find inspiration for the layout, content and page structure. The design requirements workshop gave us a steer on what our competitors are doing and established best practices.
We wanted this page to stand up and stand out against the competition, and we knew that creating a more visual and streamlined aesthetic alongside content that had a strong marketing and sales focus, wouldn’t be possible alongside the content on GOV.UK. Hosting this page on our own custom URL provided us with the opportunity to design something more custom and unique.
Using the GOV.UK design system as guidance
We were mindful that content on this page would link directly to guidance, manuals and support journeys on GOV.UK, and too much of a shift away from these established components would be jarring on landing.
Our developers would need to build custom components to create this page and it would be maintained within a CMS. We knew we needed to make sure our design was accessible and usable, and followed the GOV.UK design system guidelines closely to help us achieve this.
We structured the content on this page to contain both static and dynamic content. Our concept was to have each segment where possible managed in the CMS. The SCT would manage updating the content as and when needed. Content for segments linking to GOV.UK, blogs, social media and other 3rd party sites, would be pulled in dynamically.
Design strategy
Branding
GHBS is a part of the wider offering by the School Commercial Team (SCT). As GHBS doesn’t have its own branding or colour palette, it made sense to incorporate SCTs branding into this design as they are responsible for promoting and marketing the GHBS service to schools, and would provide continuity with the promotional material being used.
Page structure
There were a few design iterations before we decided on a layout and content hierarchy that best suited the requirements.
Hero banner
For the hero banner, we wanted to use an image that was representative of our service.
We saw that images of teachers with school children in classrooms or in the playground were often used on the landing pages of our competitors. We decided for our page we would use similar imagery, preferably using photography of real teachers with real school children if possible. Stock imagery would be used only when necessary.
Who we are
User testing identified the use of video as one way of communicating information about our service. Our users have told us they’re time poor, and they like to watch videos to consume the information they need quickly. The SCT already post videos on their social media accounts, and we will use these videos too by pulling in the content dynamically. More investigation is needed to ensure these videos are accessible before the page is made available.
How we’re different
Although our competitors often use iconography and/or stock images to illustrate the benefits of their service, we decided against doing the same, adhering to design system guidance which advises avoiding using icons as they can mean different things to different people, which can be confusing. We didn’t believe the stock imagery provided any value in this context.
We could see from the competitor analysis that adjectives were often used to describe what the service had to offer. The team voted to use this approach in the design workshop. The content designers provided a long list of powerful adjectives and descriptive statements of how users could benefit from using our service. However, putting this long list all together would increase the length of the page considerably, and we wanted to reduce the need for excessive scrolling. Using tabs would allow us to chuck up this content to make it more digestible.
We grouped the tab content into 3 categories:
- why choose us
- what we do
- ways we’ll help
We used these categories to help us differentiate our service from our competitors. We made sure this content was short and to the point so it could be easily scanned and understood.
How we’ve helped schools
We are still deciding if using stats to illustrate how we have helped schools is the right thing for this page. We will probably recommend that it should be removed, as we really provide more context around the figures presented, and we are unable to do this at this stage.
Learn about buying
We know from user feedback that there is a clear user need for our content to help educate people who are new to the procurement process. For those who want to learn more, the links in this section point to procurement guidance and manuals on GOV.UK, which provide details on:
- how to buy
- finding a framework
- creating a specification
- What to consider when buying specific goods and services
Testimonial/Case study
We wanted to show some evidence of our procurement successes. Real life examples of how GHBS have helped schools would help potential prospects connect with us. SCT have written many case studies on their Buying for Schools blog, of real schools who have used our service which has helped them to save time and money for their procurement. We picked one of the case studies to display as a testimonial, with a call-to-action to click through to the ready the full case study.
News and events
Social media posts, webinars, events and blog posts used by SCT to promote GHBS, will be dynamically pulled into the page from their original source.
The flow of the page was carefully constructed to take account of both new users and repeat users. Clear call to actions were added to the top of the page allowing new users to learn about the service and repeat users to access the service straight away. This is in keeping with the task-oriented mindset that we saw in user research.
For users who are not so sure, the remaining content was grouped and chunked up on the page to make reading easy for users to read. Links away from the page were reduced to help users focus on the content. Headings and subtitles were introduced to help users instantly recognise what the information is trying to relay.
The thinking is to enable schools to quickly absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time, without the feeling of doing a laborious task. A final call to action was added to the end of the page in anticipation that users would then be ready to use the service.
With this being one page, the length became a concern. A sticky header provides jump links to different sections of the page, without the need for excessive scrolling. This was achieved by user anchor links, tabs and hiding information that was ‘nice to have’ while promoting the information that is crucial to the user's decision on whether to use the service.
Testing the campaign page with users
Users did not tell us that they needed a campaign page. However, they have repeatedly told us that they want to know what the service offers so that they can decide whether to use it.
We inferred from this that users need to be able to compare the service we provide with our competitors. Schools have a choice, and they will always pick the service that they perceive as the one that helps them get the best value.
Testing hypotheses
Hypothesis 1. We bet that by designing a service page, we can provide users with a consistent journey and a single source of information.
User research insight showed that:
content was arranged in hierarchy they'd want
appearance familiar from other services (this was a good thing)
would mainly use for links at the top
Further considerations
This is currently a design concept specifically to promote Get help buying for schools service.
We still need to consider and be clear about the full purpose of this page, so it meets clear user needs and that all future work is done with that in mind. The purpose will define future designs on both the written and visual content.
We also need to consider the governance, build and maintenance implications of a bespoke design page like this.
Consider and plan how the content (text and images) will need to be updated and maintained, possibly by colleagues who do not have design experience or skills. This will influence the build and the strategy that we put in place to manage the content.
Rules and guidance on how it’s updated will need to be planned and how its successes will be measured and tracked.
Screenshots
First concept for campaign page
Second concept for campaign page
