National Careers Service

Role: Senior UX Designer, National Careers Service (NCS) Website – Live Service and Features Teams

Framework: Government Digital Service (GDS) Standards

Responsibilities: Interaction Design, UX Design, Design System Development

The Unisys Law Enforcement Application Framework (U-LEAF) gives resource-challenged law enforcement personnel a tool to help them meet the growing public demand for effective investigations of crime and terror threats.

To comply with my confidentiality agreement I have omitted and appropriated confidential information. These designs are a reinterpretation of the original.

Summary of the Role

As a Senior UX Designer for the National Careers Service website (nationalcareers.service.gov.uk), I focused on creating a user-friendly, visually engaging experience that supports young people in exploring career and educational options. My role covered both live service UX needs and the development of new features, ensuring that the site was accessible, interactive, and tailored to its youthful audience. This also involved a collaborative rebranding effort with GDS, resulting in a distinct, visually cohesive platform that effectively combines accessibility with fresh design choices.

Key Responsibilities

Live Service UX Support:

Live Service UX Support:

In the Live Service phase, I provided ongoing UX support for the NCS website, ensuring it met users’ evolving needs. My key tasks included:

Regularly gathering and analysing user feedback to understand pain points, implementing iterative design improvements to enhance user satisfaction.
Streamlining the navigation structure and simplifying the layout for a more intuitive experience, focusing on key areas like Career Advice, Skills Assessment, and Action Plans.
Ensuring the site remained responsive, accessible, and user-centred by quickly addressing any emerging UX needs, maintaining a consistent look and feel that aligned with NCS’s goals.

In the Live Service phase, I provided ongoing UX support for the NCS website, ensuring it met users’ evolving needs. My key tasks included:

Regularly gathering and analysing user feedback to understand pain points, implementing iterative design improvements to enhance user satisfaction.
Streamlining the navigation structure and simplifying the layout for a more intuitive experience, focusing on key areas like Career Advice, Skills Assessment, and Action Plans.
Ensuring the site remained responsive, accessible, and user-centred by quickly addressing any emerging UX needs, maintaining a consistent look and feel that aligned with NCS’s goals.

Feature Development and Enhancement:

Feature Development and Enhancement:

Working with the Features team, I played a central role in adding new features and enhancing existing ones, including Career Advice, Explore Careers, Find a Course, Skills Assessment, and Action Plans. Key aspects of my work included:

Designing user journeys and creating interactive prototypes for new tools, helping young users make well-informed choices about their career and education paths.
Iteratively improving existing features to enhance usability and accessibility, ensuring that the design met the needs of a diverse audience.
Leading UX development for new additions in Explore Careers, Find a Course, and Action Plans, carefully aligning each feature with the site’s user-centred design approach and ensuring consistency across tools.

NCS Rebranding and GDS Interaction:

NCS Rebranding and GDS Interaction:

As part of a rebranding initiative, I engaged closely with GDS to tailor the platform’s design for a younger audience, achieving a unique balance of GDS compliance and brand identity. My contributions involved:

Negotiating a partial exception from GDS standards, enabling the use of specific colour combinations, visual elements, and images that resonated with young users and distinguished the NCS site from other government services.
Establishing and documenting the National Careers Design System, a design framework that facilitated a cohesive visual language across the site, while remaining adaptable to future changes.
Implementing a visually engaging, accessible design that featured image-rich layouts and interactive elements, creating a refreshed, appealing experience that better served NCS’s branding goals.

Key Achievements

GDS Exception Approval for Unique Branding: I successfully negotiated a partial exception from GDS standards, allowing NCS to use a visually distinct style that aligned with its branding for young audiences, including specific colour schemes and imagery.
National Careers Design System Creation: I developed a structured design system for NCS, ensuring that design standards remained consistent and flexible, enabling easy adoption for ongoing and future work on the site.
Enhanced Features and User Experience: By focusing on user-centred Interaction and UX design, I significantly improved the functionality and appeal of key site areas, helping NCS create an engaging, accessible platform tailored to young people’s needs.

GDS Exception Approval for Unique Branding: I successfully negotiated a partial exception from GDS standards, allowing NCS to use a visually distinct style that aligned with its branding for young audiences, including specific colour schemes and imagery.
National Careers Design System Creation: I developed a structured design system for NCS, ensuring that design standards remained consistent and flexible, enabling easy adoption for ongoing and future work on the site.
Enhanced Features and User Experience: By focusing on user-centred Interaction and UX design, I significantly improved the functionality and appeal of key site areas, helping NCS create an engaging, accessible platform tailored to young people’s needs.

Deliverables

User Journey Maps and Interaction Flow Diagrams: Developed user journey maps and flow diagrams for key features like Career Advice, Explore Careers, Find a Course, and Action Plans, visualising pathways that support ease of navigation.
High-Fidelity Prototypes: Created high-fidelity, interactive prototypes for new features and updated existing tools, testing these prototypes iteratively to refine usability and design.
National Careers Design System: Developed a detailed design system that includes specific branding guidelines, interaction patterns, colour schemes, and image standards, ensuring consistency across the platform.
Documentation for GDS Exception: Produced comprehensive documentation to support the partial exception approval from GDS, detailing the rationale behind the unique branding elements used and ensuring compliance while maintaining a youthful appeal.

User Journey Maps and Interaction Flow Diagrams: Developed user journey maps and flow diagrams for key features like Career Advice, Explore Careers, Find a Course, and Action Plans, visualising pathways that support ease of navigation.
High-Fidelity Prototypes: Created high-fidelity, interactive prototypes for new features and updated existing tools, testing these prototypes iteratively to refine usability and design.
National Careers Design System: Developed a detailed design system that includes specific branding guidelines, interaction patterns, colour schemes, and image standards, ensuring consistency across the platform.
Documentation for GDS Exception: Produced comprehensive documentation to support the partial exception approval from GDS, detailing the rationale behind the unique branding elements used and ensuring compliance while maintaining a youthful appeal.

Result

Increased User Engagement: The enhancements to core features like Explore Careers and Find a Course led to higher engagement, with feedback showing that users found the tools easier to navigate and visually appealing.
Positive Feedback on Rebranding: The partial GDS exception allowed NCS to create a distinctive, youth-focused design, receiving positive responses for its modern, accessible interface that effectively targeted the younger demographic.
Improved Site Usability: With an accessible design system and carefully mapped user journeys, the platform saw a significant improvement in usability. This contributed to a more satisfying user experience and a stronger alignment with NCS’s goals of providing valuable career and education resources.

Increased User Engagement: The enhancements to core features like Explore Careers and Find a Course led to higher engagement, with feedback showing that users found the tools easier to navigate and visually appealing.
Positive Feedback on Rebranding: The partial GDS exception allowed NCS to create a distinctive, youth-focused design, receiving positive responses for its modern, accessible interface that effectively targeted the younger demographic.
Improved Site Usability: With an accessible design system and carefully mapped user journeys, the platform saw a significant improvement in usability. This contributed to a more satisfying user experience and a stronger alignment with NCS’s goals of providing valuable career and education resources.

Selected Works