Macmillan gets online success
Macmillan Cancer Support is a national cancer charity which provides practical, medical, emotional and financial support to people whose lives are affected by cancer. It also campaigns for better cancer care.
Working with Webcredible has given us a clear visibility of who our users are and what they want. We can now ensure that we and they get maximum value out of the Macmillan website.
Katie Smith, Macmillan Cancer Support
Objectives
Macmillan Cancer Support faced the key challenge that with increasing traffic to their website, users could find the information they needed quickly and easily. The main objectives of the project were to:
- Understand user requirements
- Be able to respond to user needs
- Know who their users are
- Implement effective changes to the website
- Measure success
What we did
We carried out a comprehensive user-centered design project to cover a range of different Macmillan websites. This began with usability testing on the main site to discover existing site problems. The usability testing consisted of 1-on-1 tests with 12 participants performing a series of tasks and then completing questionnaires at the end.
We then carried out in-depth user research followed up with persona creation and a collection of content requirements. The research involved 13 stakeholders and 20 users, with visitor numbers and user goals being further validated through an online survey. Following this, we conducted card sorting to identify user expectations of how the site's content was to be structured and labelled.
We then worked closely with Macmillan to identify the key requirements for site users and recommended solutions accordingly. Macmillan implemented our recommendations, including:
- New homepage displaying information on different cancer types
- Redesigned contact us page
- New information architecture for the online shop, and brand centre.
- Restructure of content within the site to better suit user needs
Results
The Macmillan Cancer Support website has seen a substantial increase in traffic to important areas for site users which had previously been difficult to locate. For example, there has been more than a 200% increase in people finding information on financial advice.
The user-centred design programme allowed Macmillan to get to know its target audiences and what information was of most interest to them.
