We are delighted to announce that the BHF Heart Matters online is now live. Following our previous work for the BHF, involving new IA and design for www.bhf.org.uk, Zabisco were commissioned with creating a online offering of the BHF Heart Matters publication, a bi-monthly member magazine.
The BHF approached Zabisco with the brief of creating a sustainable online version of the printed Heart Matters magazine, ensuring that the look and feel of the much loved magazine was recreated online at the same time as bringing the online version under the main BHF organisation site.
BHF Heart Matters welcome pack
“Print is very much a different medium to online so recreating the experience of Heart Matters online was a great challenge. A key factor for us was considering the older readership of Heart Matters. Throughout our user research on the project it is very evident how much this older readership, who themselves are those most likely to be non IT literate, have an emotional affinity with Heart Matters. Not only because of the subject matter, but the design, look and feel, categorisation of content – all part of the experience of reading Heart Matters. It was essential we kept the essence of what Heart Matters users love, and from this create a user centric experience online,” Marcus Marritt, Creative Services Director at Zabisco.
BHF Heart Matters online homepage
What happened
The project began with a design workshop between BHF and Zabisco, which led us into the UX Architecture stage. After applying a creative concept to the UX Architecture the project was then based around a 3 stage multivariate members testing.
The multivariate testing was focused on remote user testing, within which we tested designs and core user journeys. Taking an approach of test, review, revise and release meant throughout the 3 stages we were able to continually push the UX to greater levels in each cycle.
Once the third and final stage of the multivariate members testing was complete we then created and applied final designs. To ensure the final designs and UX were still maximised we hosted 4 sessions of lab testing at the Zabisco lab in Nottingham. These sessions allowed us to sit down individually with Heart Matters members and analyse the results of them interacting with a clickable prototype of the proposed new site.
The recorded lab sessions were analysed and final tweaks to the IA and design were applied. We typically find that pushing the testing element of such projects means we are always able to make the final UX the best possible experience it can be.
BHF Heart Matters online article page
A complete and thorough technical and styling document was prepared and handed over to the project development agency. The team at Zabisco were involved in providing feedback and approval to the final site build, and are now delighted to see the first online issue October / November 2011 is now live. As every new bi-monthly issue is published online, the Archive feature that has been planned within the IA and designed will feature throughout the site and provide the user with the ability to search previous issue content.
“It was always very important the new Heart Matters online stayed true to the printed magazine experience, our older age range audience have a very real emotional affinity to the magazine and its content. This is where Zabiscos user centric approach worked so well. The combination of testing with our members throughout the project and the expertise at both Zabisco and the BHF has resulted in a final online experience that has received fantastic feedback from our users as well as internal stakeholders. Not only have we achieved a seemless transition from print to online for our audience, but the IA is flexible to expand as and when we populate the content with new issues,” Smitha Kusumakar, Heart Matters Project Manager.
You can visit BHF Heart Matters online here
To discuss this project any further, or if you have a digital project you want to discuss you can contact Marcus on 0207 492 1975
Tags: Design, Information Architecture, navigation, Web Design, website
