Hackney Local Offer

An important part of our approach was to try to really understand the Local Offer’s target users. Throughout the design process we ran a series of focus group sessions with parents, carers and the young people themselves. These were a great opportunity to test our design assumptions and get rapid feedback on everything from icon selection to menu labelling. Using design prototypes we were able to test key user journeys with real users, iterating between sessions to rapidly move the design forward.

We were fortunate to be given pretty broad creative freedom when it came to the visual style. We wanted to achieve a memorable design that would stamp a unique identity on Hackney’s Local Offer. The bespoke illustration, a vignette of local landmarks, not only roots the design firmly in the borough, but helps to soften the overall feel. It also works effectively to convey the range of services on offer and has proved a useful design asset to unify supporting print and digital materials.

Accessibility was also an important requirement, not only in terms of supporting visually impaired users with alternative colour schemes, but also those with English as a second language. By creating a UI that would guide the user with minimal supporting text we achieved a design that also translated well across different device types from desktop down to mobile.

Our final outputs were a comprehensive set of design assets and accompanying guidance notes to make the technical implementation as straight-forward as possible for Hackney’s developers. A style guide and pattern library will help Hackney develop and adapt the site over time whilst retaining a consistent visual design.