UX research | Information architecture
Macmillan Cancer Support
Digital transformation programme for a major UK charity
The challenge
Macmillan Cancer Support needed help in redesigning and updating their digital channels. The old website (macmillan.org.uk) had some well-written content for people living with cancer (PLWC), but this was difficult to find and poorly structured. As a result, many PLWC were finding the site and leaving it almost immediately, without finding or reading the content designed to help them get through cancer.
Macmillan issued an RFP to find a strategic partner who could guide them through a programme of Digital Transformation. I led the creative team for Endava’s proposal and subsequent pitch presentations, and was delighted when we won the gig - Macmillan had been a huge help to my lovely sister Jessie during her fight against cancer.
Discovery project
- Macmillan had previously engaged with several other consultancies and design agencies who had left behind reports and proposals, few of which had been developed. So we entered Into a Discovery phase, designed to assimilate all of this thinking and conclude the best way forward for the DTP (digital transformation project).
- This involved a lot of secondary research of UX and design-related documents, for which we produced a digested read for the other Endava team members. This included an overview and gap analysis of personas representing Macmillan’s 3 key audiences - people living with cancer (PLWC), healthcare professionals and supporters.
- At the same time, we conducted a landscape UX review, comparing 3 major Macmillan sites against best practice sites. The sites were carefully chosen and we involved stakeholders closely in the decision-making process.
- We also held 43 stakeholder interviews with 63 people. As a charity with a flat organisational structure, Macmillan had difficulty prioritising the staff we should speak to, so I took the responsibility of streamlining the process of documenting each interview and extracting the key learnings, to make it as frictionless as possible.
Creating the programme roadmap
- At the end of the discovery phase, the Endava team had to present a vision and roadmap for the DTP to the Macmillan board.
- We decided to take a user-centric approach to this, so I led the creative team and BA in a day-long whiteboarding session in which we mapped out 11 large packages of work, 8 web-based and 3 app-based, to satisfy the needs of the main 3 audiences: PLWC, healthcare professionals and supporters.
- These 11 work packages were validated and sized by Endava’s strategy, technology and delivery management teams and formed the basis of our presentation to the Macmillan DTP board.
- Our proposal was accepted and we started work on the first work package, the relaunch of the anonymous site for Macmillan’s primary audience, PLWC.
Enhancing the user experience of the anonymous site
- To start off the redesign of the Cancer information and support site, I co-hosted a 2-day ideation workshop with Macmillan stakeholders and the project team. The first day was spent sharing relevant knowledge and the second day was devoted to sketching out potential user journeys and card sorting. All attendees were given homework tasks and we went out of our way to make the workshop tasks as engaging as possible.
- The workshop produced a number of interesting ideas, which were developed further and validated in a round of paper prototype user evaluation. In this case, the participants were drawn from PLWC and PABC (people affected by cancer) at Endava.
- As we progressed to mid-fidelity designs covering key pages, we conducted a further round of RITE research on a mid-fidelity prototype with recruited PLWC and PABC participants. Opportunities for improvement were very clear by the end of session 3, so we made some updates during lunch and tested a much more successful prototype in the 3 afternoon sessions.
- Meanwhile, I worked towards an improved Information architecture for the site, using Optimal Sort for an online card sort to arrive at a first draft and Treejack to validate and improve the IA through 3 more drafts. In total, we used WhatUsersDo to source 186 PLWC and PABC respondents.
- High-fidelity designs were the subject of a final round of face-to-face RITE research and online design testing in SurveyMonkey, in which our new designs and competitor sites were measured against Macmillan’s brand characteristics.
- In addition to the above user research activities, I recommended a set of KPIs for measuring the success of the new site. These KPIs are derived from Macmillan’s strategic objectives and not based on what could easily be measured.
Personalising the experience for people living with cancer
- After design had been completed for the anonymous site, we turned our attention to a personalised experience for logged-in PLWC. I produced a project plan for the creative team, who were based in London, Sofia and Chisinau, Moldova.
- To understand what PLWC would find most useful in a personalised dashboard, I set up the first formative research of the programme. We conducted house visits with 6 people who had been diagnosed in the past 5 years and explored the information that was most useful to them during their diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
- The insights gleaned from this research were captured in an experience map, which was then validated and expanded with various Macmillan SMEs.
- Key insight: We found that medical appointments and reminders were already dealt with efficiently by the hospitals. The information that was needed most in the personalised interface was a) about what to expect in the next stage of the cancer journey, b) how to deal with the impacts that cancer has on one's life and c) the benefits (such as complementary therapies and counselling) that were available.
Results
The new anonymous site for PLWC (your.macmillan.org.uk) went live in July 2019. During the first few months, an increasing proportion of visitors arriving via search will be sent to the new site, and the rest to the old site. This will allow the performance of both sites to be compared and the new site optimised until the old site is finally decommissioned.
The first indications are that active time per session on the new site is down compared to the old site, but content consumption is greater. This suggests that the new IA is, as hoped, more user-centric, and that users can find the content they need more easily.
Macmillan was a rewarding client to work with, because they fully embraced UX research and wanted all our designs to satisfy identified user needs.
