User research for a website redesign

1The client

The Welsh Local Government Association represents the 22 local authorities in Wales and was redesigning its website to serve members, officers and the public better.

2The challenge

The organisation needed to know what its audiences actually came to the site for, whether the proposed journeys matched that demand, and whether the new design was usable before it launched.

The main objectives were to:

• Identify demand across the WLGA’s audiences
• Validate the proposed user journeys
• Test the usability of the new design with representative users

3Our approach

We ran a programme of qualitative and quantitative research with members, officers and public users to establish demand, then validated the user journeys and tested the usability of the new design, feeding findings back to the design team in each iteration.

4The results

The redesign launched with journeys and content shaped by evidence from its real audiences. Engagement ran from January to June 2024.