Increase online engagement and bookings for English Forestry
Forestry Commission England
The Forestry Commission's key aims are to increase awareness about their work, drive visits to their woodlands and create a warm positive brand experience. The current site was struggling to meet these objectives as well as some of the more basic user requirements - as the team's Lead Experience Designer it was my responsibility to change this.
- RoleLead Experience Designer
- IndustryPublic Sector & Conservation
- TeamDevelopers, PM, technical product owner & Forestry Commission stakeholders
- TimelineSeptember 2018 - December 2018
The challenge
As Lead Experience Designer, it was my responsibility to understand who was visiting the Forestry Commission's 1,500+ sites and why - identifying user pain points and objectives and creating a solution that met both organisational goals and user needs. I worked as part of an agile team of developers, a project manager and a technical product owner, blended with key stakeholders from the Forestry Commission, one of whom acted as product owner.
Analytics, Hotjar heatmaps and recordings, an on-site exit poll, and both remote and in-person usability testing - backed by research into similar sites - showed users struggling to find a nearby forest, unable to plan a visit without digging for basic information, and disengaging when served content unrelated to the activity they actually wanted.
Redesigning the woodland experience
Find a forest
The challenge
Both screen recordings and moderated tests demonstrated users struggling to find a nearby forest by using either the current map or entering a postcode - this became even more apparent when observing the same task on a mobile device.
The solution
To reduce friction, it was key to quickly direct potential forest visitors to the right forest landing page without distraction. A predictive search feature added to the home hero banner asking for the user's geo-location or postcode, would dynamically produce links to each forest's respective landing page. Alternatively, the user could select a preferred activity instead, driving them to an activity landing page listing nearby participating forests.
Predictive search and activity-based routing to the right forest landing page
Plan a visit
The challenge
Unmoderated tests showed that planning a visit often proved hard, as users were unable to find basic information such as parking costs and facilities across a number of devices.
The solution
Key visitor information was placed on a separate layer that worked responsively, so it didn't need to visually compete with the rest of the forest landing page allowing users the space to plan their visit. The 'Visitor Information' call to action was given high prominence, and on mobile was fixed to the bottom of the page so users could see and access it at any point - especially useful while in transit.
Visitor information surfaced as its own responsive layer, pinned on mobile
Create a tailored experience
The challenge
Users looking for a particular forest activity, such as cycling, became disengaged when seeing totally irrelevant content - such as concert imagery or timber sales - that neither addressed their need nor inspired them. Part of the challenge here was to also accommodate stakeholders outside of the project who had their own designs and ideas for their particular pages without breaking the visual consistency across the rest of the site.
The solution
User flows captured the content and features required for each persona's journey across the site, laying the foundation for a new information architecture with key sections built around specific user objectives such as music events, timber sales and volunteering - validated with a Treejack testing session through Optimal Workshop. The top navigation and a 'select activity' feature on the homepage then kept wildly different content contained within the the key journeys identified in research. Full-bleed imagery and elements from Forestry's brand identity created consistency with offline material and much-needed engagement, flexible enough to span art exhibitions, kids' activities and timber sales alike. I used internal stakeholder designs as research stimulus to better understand their requirements and ensure the current templated designs would meet their needs. This would then ensure design was consistent across the entire site.
Content and navigation built around visitor objectives, from music events to Gruffalo trails
Results
Prototypes were used as part of guerrilla testing and iterated on based on feedback. Working closely with the development team meant the design could be tweaked to create a minimum viable product that met the budget - the home predictive search menu in particular needed refining due to technical restrictions. The site launched successfully with early positive indicators and feedback.
-
17 %
Increase in event bookings -
48 %
Increase in mobile views -
84
Net Promoter Score
What I learned
Thinking outside the box
On-site testing meant travelling to a forest with no guarantee of footfall, for insight I could get faster elsewhere. So instead I tested the current site with colleagues who'd already visited Forestry Commission sites for different reasons, from family days out to high adrenaline activities, walking them through the mobile site as if planning a visit somewhere new. It surfaced the same friction points, plus some very niche mountain biking content in a fraction of the time - giving FCE's stakeholders a concrete starting point for the design workshop.
Why not drop me a line?
If you have an upcoming project and need help, I'd love to be involved! Just get in touch and let's get started.
