We’ve worked closely with Skills Development Scotland for years, so when they approached us to help them connect with parents, we jumped at the chance.
SDS are Scotland’s national skills development agency, charged with preparing Scotland’s workforce to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving economic and technological landscape. We’ve worked with them on numerous projects, from their corporate website to their career matching service My World of Work, their modern apprenticeship site Apprenticeships.scot, and more. They engage with multiple audiences, from teenagers in high school planning out their course choices to young adults understanding and exploring their career options, modern apprentices seeking real world learning and experience, and employers looking to find the next generation of talent.
Parents play a critical role in fostering their children’s understanding of the workplace and the opportunities available to them, as well as in guiding them in their skills and career decisions. However it was an audience SDS had yet to address directly, so sought to launch a website to help parents understand both the modern career skills landscape, the different pathways available to their children, and how SDS can support them and their children in their decisions.
Design sprinting to a solution
To kick off the project and help SDS get a better understanding of their target audience, we started the project by participating in a 3 day Google Design Sprint where our designers worked in collaboration with SDS to start from an initial objective and build the project up from there.
We started by exploring their audience’s needs, then went on to define the project goals and key outcomes, ideate possible approaches, and prototype wireframes and test those solutions with users and key business stakeholders. We were then able refine the wireframes and the content around the requirements that came out of the Design Sprint before moving on to the full website design and development project.
Their site’s beautiful designs were brought to life through bespoke templates developed within Umbraco, which gave SDS the ability to create a community where parents could share their stories with other users. Being hosted on Azure, their site also came with excellent performance standards to give their users seamless experiences no matter their access point.
The new site launched in late October and was very well received by both our client and their target audience. Check out the website for yourself and get an understanding of what skills Scotland needs!
If you’re looking to engage with new or existing audiences, check out how our Design Sprints service could help you with your next project.
Kirsty
Project Manager