Redesign to improve engagement 

Drinkaware.co.uk is a UK charity aimed at raising awareness of the effects of alcohol consumption. 

Due to a difficult and content heavy experience, the existing site needed to be redesigned focusing on three predefined user age groups. 

The client wanted to deliver a digital platform that can act as a catalyst, and provide support, for people to make positive changes with regards to their relationship with alcohol.

Challenging preconceptions  

Having assessed the brief proposed by the client, and based on an initial in-depth research phase, we decided to challenge their proposed direction. We felt that it was a better approach to focus not on the age groups but more on user profiles and motivations. 

We began by gaining a deep understanding of the effects of alcohol and other addictive substances in order to try and understand why people look for help. 

Personally, I focused on both the health risks but also the psychology behind human thought processes of addiction, habit, motivation and choice. 

These findings were represented visually in a number of ways, including personas, flow diagrams and sketches. 

Kick off workshop

We ran a kick off workshop which included members of the different teams at drinkaware, including marketing, content creators and business development to identify the the opinions and needs of team and the content they required. 

Wireframing to communicate our approach

We focused on redesigning the homepage and a selection of article pages which brought the most traffic the site. We used wireframes to communicate the need for content hierarchy and the idea that its important to have triggers or attention grabbers to maximise engagement. 

For example, statistics on how alcohol effects long term mental health may be grab one users attention, whilst realising the monetary cost of of alcohol may be more effective for others.

Flow diagrams

With established user profiles and our finalised approach we developed more detailed, journey focused flow diagrams including specific site interactions and behaviours.

Final visual design

We worked closely with visual design teams to create a final design that highlighted what considered to the most important content, and to promoted the interactive tools.