Rocket are working with the Health and Safety Executive to develop their website from the ground up. Here we’ll talk about the methods and thinking behind the development, this being the first thrilling installment, Information Architecture!:
Organic growth over ten years, up to two hundred updates every month and at least 30,000 pages. The structure of the HSE’s website has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders. Unfortunately the structure can no longer cope, resulting in a confusing, often disorientating user experience.
Rckt we’re asked to create a web structure that delivered an engaging and intuitive user experience. To tackle this seemingly daunting task rckt employed our tried and tested information architecture model.
We base all our decision making not on gut feel or intuition, but on solid facts and objective reason. The result? Exciting design backed by a watertight rationale. So where did we begin with the HSE?
The rationale behind rckt’s approach
Alongside a team from the HSE rckt embarked upon a series of structured workshops to define and manipulate the vast quantity and variety of information into a logical structure.
Site Mapping in Progress
Rckt’s iterative workshop method delivers a user-centric logic to information architecture
This process has created a completely new approach to the structure of the HSE website, categorising all information into five distinct subject areas. These top-level areas give the user an instant overview of the whole site, allowing them to make informed decisions about where to go within the site.
The five global subject areas developed for the HSE
Watch out for Transforming HSE Part 2 coming soon, which will focus on design features of the new web standards.
simon