Simplifying the search for resources at Nationwide Education
Nationwide Education is an online resource for teachers to find educational content for use in their lessons. It houses many multi-media educational resources, including videos, worksheet, digital games, teachers notes and collections of material for use in the classroom. I re-worked the design and structure of the site to make finding resources easier.
Agency: Zinc Communicate
Role: Designer
Role: Designer
The brief
Nationwide Education wanted to re-work the way resources are accessed from their site, promoting new work and making it easier for the user to find the content they need quickly and simply.
The solution
With the simplest user journey in mind, I reworked the site to make the search function a priority, easily visible and accessible site-wide, adding a "My Ideas" section to the site for the user to bookmark collections of resources into their own account to reference later.
The search functionality was the most challenging as the resources are scattered and needed categorising and ordering. They needed easily-visible signposting to allow the user to clearly find what they need and/or view what resources are on offer and where these can be used, with what age groups, and what form of media the resource takes. I simplified and restructured the way information on resources is presented to the user, using icons where possible to deliver information visually (although only where an established affordance existed). I established a hierarchy for search returns and links enabling the user to find related resources.
I simplified the visual design of the site, which was previously a little cluttered and confusing, using more space, clean visuals and more clearly defined sections and headers to allow the user to better see the content available.
