We've relaunched Curo’s website with a refreshed design that’s clean, accessible and easy to navigate. As you might imagine, a lot of work has gone on in the background to get to this point, so I wanted to explain a bit about the process, including how we’ve gathered feedback from colleagues and customers and incorporated it into the new design.
We needed to upgrade our website software to the newest version to ensure the site remains supported and secure, with access to up-to-date functionality and features. The Communications Team wanted to take the opportunity to update the design at the same time.
Customer feedback
It was crucial to take a customer-first approach to any changes we made, and we wanted to make sure that we gave both customers and colleagues the chance to be involved in the redesign process. The first step was to carry out a stakeholder workshop which assessed the needs of website users. A focus group of six residents looked at the usability of the current site. This gave useful feedback on the menus, which we’ve simplified in the new design.
We then worked with our web supplier Nvisage’s lead designer, who showed us examples of other housing association websites. We discussed what worked well and what didn’t. Based on our conversation, the designer submitted redesigns of the home page and landing pages. She then met with Elliot Guise, our Creative Design Lead, to check that Curo’s branding and accessibility guidelines were being followed.
Involving colleagues
We asked both colleagues and customers to feedback on the new design in a validation task.
Overall, 383 people took part in the five-minute task, which checked the usability of the new design. The task asked customers and colleagues to click the easiest way to do tasks such as report a repair, find the balance on their rent, choose a method to contact Curo, find how to contact Curo by email and more.
The task was sent in an all-staff email to colleagues: 59 took part.
An e-newsletter with the task was sent to all customers for whom we have an email address: 324 took part.
The study was a strong validation of the design. Responses showed a high success rate across the board for task completion and feedback was positive. However, some feedback required minor design tweaks, including more prominence being given to alternative contact options, adjustments to the ‘Residents’ menu and changing one of the icons for clarity.
Accessibility
During the redesign and upgrade process, it was crucial that we considered all website users, including people with disabilities and alternative language needs. The new website supports all the requirements of WCAG 2.1. This stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, which are a set of internationally recognised standards for creating accessible digital content. The ReachDeck tool will also transfer to the new version of the website. ReachDesk is a website accessibility tool that helps make online content more accessible to people with disabilities or who need translations into languages other than English.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the process to redesign the website, particularly the colleagues who gave feedback on the new designs. We hope you enjoy using it. If you have any feedback you’d like to share, please email me: marianne.rawlins@curo-group.co.uk