A total content and platform migration for the nationwide.co.uk website.

Summary

As a member of a large team of content designers, I collaborated on redesigning user journeys and improving content. Our goal was to provide a consistent, usable experience across all product areas and types of pages.

Context

Nationwide is the world’s oldest building society, a mutual organisation owned by and run for its 16 million members. It was first to market with internet banking in 1997 (!), and has been providing online services through its website, mobile banking app and internet bank ever since.

Unfortunately, like Tony Blair, and unlike Spiceworld, Nationwide.co.uk hadn’t aged well.

My job, as part of a team of designers, was to give Nationwide’s online presence a total revamp for the 21st century.

The problem

Nationwide is also the world’s largest building society, with 16 million members – many of whom use its suite of digital offerings to service their financial products every day.

The website attracts 11 million visits each month and plays a pivotal role in supporting members and potential members with their sales and servicing journeys.

How to treat errors, empty states, and other sensitive topics in UX writing is a fascinating area. Many see it as an opportunity to make their copy the star of the show - think funny 404 pages. However, I think the best copy is the stuff that gets out of the way once it's made its point, in the clearest, most humane way possible.

How to treat errors, empty states, and other sensitive topics in UX writing is a fascinating area. Many see it as an opportunity to make their copy the star of the show - think funny 404 pages. However, I think the best copy is the stuff that gets out of the way once it's made its point, in the clearest, most humane way possible.

Offering a wide range of products, keeping information up to date and helping people make the right financial decisions for them is no small feat. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of content on the website was undermining its purpose. Outdated, duplicated or incorrect information can cause risks by potentially confusing or misleading members – so it was essential that we simplify and govern content to mitigate these risks, preventing members from harm and the Society from reputational or even financial damage in the form of fines.

The project

We aimed to deliver a simplified experience that would help members access and service products quickly and easily, while also helping Nationwide become more purposeful in its content governance and management.

With stakeholders from the business financing the project, delivering on time and within budget was critical. There was a deadline to replatform all content from the existing Nationwide.co.uk site onto a new CMS, due to the upcoming expiry of a licence.

This meant using an agile methodology to prioritise design effort, and creating a backlog for 'Day 2' items as we worked through all pages to review, rationalise, reduce and move content across to the new CMS.

Multi-disciplinary design teams worked separately on product areas - for example, on savings, current accounts, investments etc. - but with collaboration on process and key areas of crossover.

As a project we faced several challenges, including obtaining sign off from the PRA, sustained dual running of two websites, and changes in key resources throughout the two years.

What I did

I joined the project as part of a team working on the mortgages product area, which included 5 calculators. My team included UX and UI designers, as well as one other content designer.