A modern, striking and engaging website… all before election day!

The Challenge

The Problem

The Electoral Reform Society believe that a fairer, more representative voting system is essential for democracy. The system used to elect MPs has a dramatic impact of the lives of those living in Britain, and electoral reform is a way to ensure that Parliament represents the will of the people.

It is vital to the long term goals of the Electoral Reform Society that their website and brand reflect their mission and values. They wanted to work with us on this project because, as an agency, we share their values, understand their objectives and are aware of how vital their brand and digital presence is to their campaigning and communications.

Our team of designers and strategists were already working closely with them on the project, only for Theresa May to announce a snap election, which threw our carefully prepared timelines out of the window!

Our research had shown that the website receives huge spikes of traffic shortly before and after an election. We knew that the existing site was no longer able to provide the experience that this audience would require, and we were eager to use this the opportunity to unveil the new brand, and the new website.

Due to the expected spike in traffic, we wanted to raise awareness of the great work that the Electoral Reform Society do, to increase newsletter sign-ups, donations and memberships.

We also wanted to encourage engagement with campaigns from the general public. Reform can only happen when people are willing to take action – and this is a principle we applied to the website. The user journeys were crafted around high value call to actions – such as signing petitions and writing to MPs.

The Solution

With a new deadline just 51 days away, we met with the Electoral Reform Society to discuss our plans for a new, phased approach. We would, in short, create a website tailored specifically for the General Election, and to those users and user journeys most likely to be engaging with the website immediately before, during and after the election. We did this by removing content from phase 1 that doesn’t relate directly to the General Election. This content is still informative, and extremely useful to the Electoral Reform Society’s audiences, but we decided to apply a more singular focus in this first phase. We sketched out key user journeys based around potential new and existing users, who are likely to be driven to the website as a result of pre-election questions, and potential post-election concerns.

To potential new users within the general public, perhaps those newly engaged in the political process, the fine details of voting systems and electoral reform can be overwhelming if not presented properly. In order to engage with this new audience, content needed to be findable and easy to understand, so all clutter was stripped away, and the new information architecture was refined, simplified and tested. Electoral Reform Society began creating pre-election content, tailored to the expected influx of new visitors.

We and the Electoral Reform Society released a modern, striking and engaging website that provides an engaging narrative, clear user journeys and simple, optimised call to actions… all before Election Day!

What We Did

• A new brand identity for the Electoral Reform Society
• Logos for the Scotland, Northern Ireland and Cymru sub-brands
• An overhaul of the information architecture
• A streamlined pre-election website