Helping irish people access internet service
National Broadband Ireland
UX,UI
National Broadband Ireland are connecting rural communities to high-speed fibre broadband under the National Broadband plan. Their website needs to tell the story of what NBI is doing and update the public on their progress. The site is also a means for the public to engage with NBI, to search for information specific to their locality, sign up for the service in their area and to receive updates about developments. I collaborated on a UX audit, analysing their existing site and making recommendations for improvement. I then completed a complete design overhaul and worked with the developers to deliver the site.
Challenge
NBI wanted to make it significantly easier for users to find necessary information and to increase submissions to their 'expression of interest' form. Our team included an SEO specialist to help drive organic traffic and they also input into the content writing. My role was to lead the UX audit of the current site, make recommendations for the new version and then complete a ground up re-design of the site.
One particular challenge was making the 'search your eircode' functionality perform better. This was a key feature for the client but currently users were either not engaging with it or they weren't able to complete their query satisfactorily.
Process
UX audit
Huskies undertook an initial UX audit, putting together analysis from Hotjar and Google Analytics to inform the recommendation set. We made recommendations around site architecture and information hierarchy on key pages.
We focused on:
- clarifying the site structure and navigation through consultation with client using site maps and low fidelity wireframes
- Optimising key user flows
- improving information hierarchy to make information more easily comprehensible, particularly on key high-traffic feature pages
Mapping site structure
Homepage
We designed one overall 'mission statement' box and two prominent CTAs on the homepage to act as the primary signposts and help users achieve their primary aims.
I designed a process diagram that animated in as the user scrolled, delivering the information in a progressive way that guided the user through it. I bookended this diagram with two 'key stats' sections. The first section communicated the ambition of the project and the second was a live counter that spoke to the progress that has been made so far and its status as an active and ongoing project.
UI animatic for the homepage that formed part of the briefing to the developer.
Search your eircode
The purpose of this feature is to allow users to search to see if their property is included within the national broadband rollout. I prioritised access to this key functionality by signposting it more clearly on the homepage with a call to action panel as part of the main introduction section, as well as a spot on the main sticky navigation.
On the current site the results were displayed as icons on a map and this was causing confusion and also providing unnecessary information as the user did not need to be shown their location as this information was a priori necessary for them to have done the search in the first place.
I changed the order of priority on the search results so that the first action of the system was to confirm in simple language whether your property was included or not, and then explained next steps. We complemented this with new icons in their brand style. Finally, we reinforced the results by including the map item below the result statement with the new icons and clarified legend showing the status of the user's property and all the surrounding ones. This meant that we were delivering the key information up front but also still providing this additional contextual information.
Team
- What I did: UX, UI, motion design
- Development by Sonalake
- Additional UX by Ruby Corcoran and Eamonn Finn