The brief

The British Association and College of Occupational Therapists (BAOT/COT) is the national professional body for occupational therapy students and staff in the United Kingdom.

BAOT/COT is responsible for setting professional and educational standards, advising on policy, and supporting its 29,000 members’ research and development, professional practice and Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

BAOT/COT’s main channel of communication to members is their website. As a key component of their service to OT staff and students they wanted to ensure they were providing a valuable and easy-to-use resource, so they asked Flow to help them understand what members and non-members wanted from this resource, and then to re-design the site around these needs.

What we did

Using a range of research techniques throughout the project, Flow investigated the needs of Occupational Therapy staff and students, and designed a new website for BAOT/COT around those needs.

We interviewed Occupational Therapists, OT support workers and students to understand their perceptions of BAOT/COT as an organisation, the BAOT/COT website and other resources they use to aid them in their studies or practice. We synthesised the insights gathered from this research into a series of personas, each illustrating characteristics of different members of BAOT/COT’s audience; and used these personas throughout the project to guide and evaluate design decisions.

BAOT/COT had a wealth of information on their existing website, however, as the site had grown organically this information had become increasingly challenging to locate. To ensure content was well organised and easy to locate we undertook a card sorting exercise with people representative of BAOT/COT’s audience. This enabled us to identify the different mental models people used to understand the content that BAOT/COT wanted to include on the new site, and guided the site structure and labelling of content.

Moving into the design phase of the project, we used the insights from our initial research activity to guide concept generation and development. In order to validate our design decisions, we also tested mock-ups of the site with users at every stage – from initial concept sketches through to the final visual design, ensuring we were developing something which met users’ needs and satisfied BAOT/COT’s objectives.

Once the new site was built, we tested it again with users to validate the final designs and evaluate the site against the original brief.

The results

BAOT/COT successfully launched their new website which has been designed to grow organically, forming the foundation of a continually improving member resource.

BAOT/COT’s new website has enabled them to create a more engaging and valuable resource for members and non-members alike. Having moved away from a website which pushed information to members, to one which stimulates online debate between the organisation and its members, BAOT/COT anticipate an increase in membership and in the number of people using the site.

www.cot.co.uk

“Flow's user centred approach helped BAOT/COT understand our users' online behaviours and needs. It also helped clarify our own business goals. Clear user priorities emerged from Flow's research with our members which helped us make confident decisions about site structure, design and navigation. The team at Flow were quick to understand our values and aspirations as well as the practical challenges we faced. Their approach inspired confidence and trust. The new BAOT/COT website which emerged from the project continues to add more and more value to our business.”

Stephen Little, Web Manager and Editor for the British Association of Occupational Therapists and College of Occupational Therapists