Background

NPC is a charity think tank and consultancy. Their goal is to help charities, foundations, philanthropists, impact investors, social enterprises, corporates, and the public sector to maximise social impact in the lives of the people they serve. Over the years, we’ve developed a strong relationship with NPC, and they were one of the first clients Supersonic Playground brought on board when we launched in 2014.

The business challenge

Since its launch in 2012, the previous NPC website had served the organisation well, but as the years went on, it started to suffer from a dated appearance, bloated content and a creaking backend that was prone to issues when the site was updated. A bigger picture issue was that the site also failed to communicate NPC’s core purpose, leaving stakeholders confused about what NPC stood for. Our longstanding relationship with the client meant we were well-positioned to support them on this journey, and in 2018 we were commissioned to deliver a completely new website.

The solution we delivered

To ensure the new website had the highest chance of success, we recommended an intensive user research phase where we enlisted the help of a wide range of stakeholders, including real-world users, to use their insights and feedback to inform our design decisions. We carried out several user experience tasks, including stakeholder interviews and on-site user testing on both the old website and early versions of the new one. This research highlighted several key concerns: the old website was perceived as busy and confusing, with basic tasks being hard to complete and where NPC’s core message was getting lost.

These findings were instrumental in helping us to identify where the critical performance issues were with the old site. It also allowed NPC to re-evaluate their core messaging and which content they should carry across to the new website. We also used this research to help us in the new website project’s wireframe and visual design stages, focusing on usability, simplicity, and navigation.

The new website was launched in late 2018 and is a completely bespoke design and build project that leverages WordPress. As part of this process, we also created a custom admin area that gives the NPC team the ability to continually update and maintain their site’s content without relying on us for continual development. We also worked in partnership with Be Seen Online during the launch process to ensure the new website not only maintained but improved its search rankings.

The results

The NPC website continues to receive positive feedback and praise from its stakeholders and clients. Internally, the team has reported that the site is much easier to maintain than previously and that they’ve seen significant improvements in their search rankings. They have also relayed anecdotal feedback from their users that the new website feels cleaner, less cluttered and overall easier and more enjoyable to use.