YMCA Derbyshire have a wide range of users who visit their site, looking to access a variety of services such as booking childcare, enquiring about housing and browsing training opportunities.
This results in having multiple possible user journeys, all of which need to be carefully considered when designing a new website; YMCA Derbyshire wanted to improve the usability of their website to ensure that visitors were able to navigate their site with ease.
They came to us with a request to carry out a user experience (UX) audit, then later a full website re-design to put our UX recommendations into practice with the aim of launching a new site with user experience at its core.
To add an additional element to the project, during the design process YMCA underwent a nationwide re-brand which included new brand guidelines for each regional branch to follow. We had to ensure that the new design for the website adhered to these new guidelines.
We designed a bespoke new website, focusing on showcasing YMCA’s diverse range of services and clearly organising the site’s content for easy navigation.
From initial UX analysis through to launch, we collaborated closely with the team at YMCA Derbyshire every step of the way.
Due to their diverse range of services, we knew it was essential that we didn’t try to design their new website with a ‘one size fits all’ approach, but instead with different user aims and needs in consideration.
To address the diverse range of users, and ensure the new site accurately represented their services, we conducted a UX audit.
We reviewed their existing website and provided detailed recommendations for the redesign. We looked deeply into how each type of user might use YMCA’s old site by plotting their user journeys and considering how easily they could get the information they needed. From here, we analysed how certain changes to the site plan and page layouts could increase the usability and help each user reach where they needed to be as quickly and efficiently as possible.
We then planned the sitemap for their new website, implementing several of our UX recommendations and fully optimising user accessibility based on their needs. As we begun the design phase of their new site, we incorporated the remaining UX recommendations in areas such as page layout and flow. User experience remained at the forefront throughout the entire process.
During the website re-design process, YMCA Derbyshire merged with local organisation Padley Group. We worked closely with Padley themselves to ensure that the new YMCA Derbyshire website still showcased Padley effectively. We ensured their service offering was still fully accessible and clear to existing Padley service users, to avoid any confusion or uncertainty.
Our work didn’t end when the website launched though – the nature of YMCA’s work means there are regular content updates required on their new site. YMCA Derbyshire were keen for their team to be self-sufficient and able to manage content updates internally going forward. Our website team worked with YMCA Derbyshire’s internal marketing team, training them on content management and content optimisation to ensure ongoing search engine optimisation and high website performance.
We developed a welcoming new website for YMCA Derbyshire, highlighting the incredible work they do through a seamless UX design tailored to the diverse needs of their site visitors.
The website achieved an impressive performance score of 96%, highlighting its high responsiveness and fast loading speed, which are crucial for user-friendliness.
As always, we optimised the website for SEO, including speed enhancements, image optimisation and adding search titles and descriptions to each page. These efforts ensure the website not only had the best possible launch but continues to reach a wide audience and help as many people as possible.
The team at MacMartin are absolutely fabulous! They helped us from start to finish scope out a plan for our LARGE website (over 100 pages) to improve the branding, speed, carbon footprint and user experience. I cannot recommend them enough if you have a website project!
The project from start to finish was seamless and they guided us through the process keeping us informed at every step, and making adjustments until the site was perfect. No stone was left unturned, MacMartin provided us with a clear plan including user profiles, layout options and expert advice the whole way through.
We can’t thank you enough for your hard work, dedication and patience throughout the project. Claire, Anna, Olivia and Sian you are all amazing. A super friendly team, that just get it! You made the process completely stress free.
We are so happy with our new website.”