Archives

General Pharmaceutical Council

May 12, 2016

“I would not hesitate to use Binary Vision again and certainly cannot recommend them highly enough”

Emma Beals, GPhC

General Pharmaceutical Council

Creating a ‘digital first’ strategy and phasing out print.

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The challenge

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is the national regulator for all pharmacies, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in Britain. The GPhC had a number of printed publications, such as their annual report, that were valued by users but were becoming increasingly expensive to print and distribute.

What we did

We created HTML versions of  key publications – better for SEO and better all round for users. The web versions can also be used to dynamically generate PDF files so that:

  • Users can print the whole publication or add just the pages they want to a print basket and create a customised version
  • As a regulator, the GPhC has to file a professionally printed and bound version of their accounts, to a specified format, with parliament. They can now use the CMS to simply generate the necessary PDF version, direct from the HTML publication. This not only reduces costs but eliminates the errors that so often occur with two versions of a publication. There is one, master version of the text.
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How it turned out

The GPhC have made major savings on print costs and it is now possible to update elements like the Pre-registration manual as and when changes in practice come into effect.

Users find the responsive, HTML versions far easier to use and appreciate the convenience of creating their own, custom print versions.

GPhC annual report

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“In all my dealings with Rupert, all Binary Vision staff and external contractors in the employ of BV I have found them to be utterly professional, willing to go the extra mile (and beyond) and extremely astute in their field.

“I would not hesitate to use Binary Vision again and certainly cannot recommend them highly enough both as a company but also as very committed individuals who are a pleasure to do business with.”

Emma Beals, General Pharmaceutical Council
Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force: Typhoon Quest

May 11, 2016

“Creatively and technically BV are first-class”

Adam Proctor, RAF

Royal Air Force: Typhoon Quest

Putting visitors in the pilot’s seat.

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The challenge

To publicise their latest fighter the RAF commissioned a full-sized replica Eurofighter Typhoon and two replica cockpits. Exhibition visitors could climb into these models and sit in the pilot’s seat. The only problem was that these static, inert exhibits did nothing to engage the public. How could we attract people, give them a memorable experience and then gently move them on?

What we did

BV created a highly interactive, high-adrenaline video game experience: Typhoon Quest (TQ), to run in all the Typhoon replicas. The game uses low-flying footage from RAF jets, 3-D CGI, an intense bass-boosted soundtrack and a haptic (force feedback) joystick – combining to create compelling gameplay.

To draw people (especially younger people) to RAF stands, TQ uses large plasma screens to show the live gaming experience to the waiting crowds.

To ensure a steady throughput of users: the game is a fixed-length experience, ensuring our target throughput of under three minutes per user. Visitors learn how the game works while watching the screens in the queue – making the game easy to use and maximising the number of users.

We also created a web spin-off – with much of the impact and excitement of the original but at a fraction of the bandwidth.

Download a PC desktop version of Typhoon Quest

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How it turned out

  • TQ-Grab-1_850wide
  • TQ-Grab-2_850wide
  • TQ-Grab-3_850wide

The typhoon replicas have been used at dozens of events, where they are invariably surrounded by excited crowds with people queuing up to play Typhoon Quest and put themselves in the pilot’s seat.

User evaluation: after playing Typhoon Quest, 92.7% of users rated it ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

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“Binary Vision are always upfront about what anything will cost and stick rigidly to budget. Creatively and technically BV are first-class, often turning around projects and work in a fraction of the time taken by other agencies. On more than one occasion they’ve been able to do bespoke work at incredibly short notice”

Adam Proctor SO2 Digital Media, RAF

Medical Research Council

May 7, 2016

“Binary Vision are knowledgeable about all aspects of digital and adapted their approach to suit the needs of my project”

Kate Lin, MRC

Medical Research Council

In some ways, creating a user-focused website is like medical research – we built and then iteratively improved the new MRC website based on evidence which was researched and then tested with their users.

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The challenge

Create a new MRC website that works better for their users, while delivering MRC’s strategic goals.

What we did

We created the infrastructure for all seven UK Research Council websites. We then went on to design, user test and deliver a brand new site for the Medical Research Council.

Take a look for instance at the interactive ‘Our successes’ infographic. This is responsive (optimised for a range of devices from phones to PCs), and it’s readily updatable by our client via the CMS.

Please also see the MRC career framework case study.

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How it turned out

We conducted surveys before and after our site relaunch. For “overall user experience” 24% of users had given the previous site either 4 or 5 out of 5, against 60% for our new site.

And along with MRC we’re continuing to user test, iterate and improve the site.

MRC website

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“Binary Vision provided insight and expertise through all parts of the project including strategy and design to testing and support. With their help we launched the site on schedule to a very tight deadline.”

Kate Lin, MRC

Jewish Care Interact

May 6, 2016

“A website that provides a fantastic user experience for all, and is beautiful, usable and accessible”

Sandi Wassmer, Jewish Care

Jewish Care Interact

Great accessibility to deliver great usability.

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The challenge

To build a truly accessible website, that engages older and disabled people – and which they find easy to use.

What we did

We were delighted to have an opportunity to develop the Jewish Care Interact (JCi) website, in no small part as it gave us an opportunity to work with Sandi Wassmer, our client there and a globally renowned expert on accessibility. And the site – aimed specifically at older and disabled (Jewish) people – has given us an opportunity to deliver to the highest accessibility standards.

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How it turned out

Accessibility designed-in from the start

The best way to ensure a site will be good to use, is to test and iterate it with real users. For the JCi site that meant taking some pretty unusual steps to ensure that our user research and design process was in itself inclusive to all of our target users. Here’s how we involved older and disabled people in our user-centred site design process, to ensure that the JCi site is easy to use for everyone:

  • Having in-person card sorting sessions with carers supporting a range of users with disability
  • Creating an HTML prototype very early on, using web standards to ensure this could be accessed and user tested with a range of assistive technologies (AT)
  • Conducting observational formative testing sessions with disabled users and their chosen AT systems, to see how the accessibility features not only work, but how user friendly they are
  • Inclusion (with appropriate consideration and support) of users with cognitive and learning disabilities to help us simplify the interaction design. In our view, this has benefited all users in delivering a really simple UI even for complex areas of functionality such as the forum and the four care directories.

User testing with this wide range of users led to some interesting changes of tack. For instance we found that any attempt to overly abbreviate the main site sections made them confusing to navigate for some users. So we designed around that, adopting very long section names but with a more prominent initial word or two for easy reference e.g. ‘CARE WHERE you’re living or staying’. This eventual solution user tested extremely well, across the user base.

Developing with accessibility built-in

We then designed and coded the JCi site using the best web coding standards, delivering well beyond the WCAG specification in numerous ways. This often meant intercepting and improving on the code output by the CMS (in this case Drupal).

There are too many JCi accessibility features to list out (and some are very technical) but here are examples of what we delivered:

  • Enhanced page elements with WAI-ARIA attributes to provide key information to assistive devices
  • Added ‘skip to’ links where helpful for usability and in the context of the view port (e.g. some added for mobile views only)
  • Explicit support for selected assistive technologies, for example the gesture-based VoiceOver on IOS and OSX (many allegedly “accessible” menus we’ve come across don’t in practice support these technologies, even though they are the mainstay of web access for many visually impaired users)
  • Menus enhanced to be four-way keyboard navigable, i.e. with direction keys as well as (two-way) tab focus
  • Accessible editorial, for instance with correctly ordered headings
  • Form error messages – which appear directly before their relevant fields, as well an overarching error message at the top of the form. (The idea is that focus goes to this top error enabling AT users to re-navigate the form and correct the specific errors in situ).
  • Excellent contrast ratios meeting or exceeding AAA, and to highlight key state changes (such as mouse-over and selected).
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We worked with the team at Binary Vision on Jewish Care Interact from project scoping through to final delivery, across UX design, content strategy, UI design, IA, visual design and CMS development.

As our website’s audience spans a diverse range of older and disabled people, it was vital that it be built in line with inclusive design principles, as well as guidelines and best practices for usability and accessibility.

This has resulted in a website that provides a fantastic user experience for all, and is beautiful, usable and accessible. Easy to say, but not at all easy to do.

The Binary Vision team are talented, highly skilled, passionate and creative, and this is evident in everything that they do. We are thrilled with the website and cannot thank Binary Vision enough for all of their hard work and dedication in helping us create such a fantastic and essential service.”

Sandi Wassmer, Jewish Care

British Antarctic Survey

May 5, 2016

“Collectively we’ve created something amazing and I hope you guys feel as happy about it as I do”

Linda Capper, BAS

British Antarctic Survey

Three teams pulling together.

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The challenge

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) had a website that was dense and dated – and didn’t integrate with their other business applications.

What we did

Working with our partner, lead agency Helpful Technology, and BAS’s own technical team we developed custom WordPress plugins that pull in data from several sources to build and populate content pages.

  • An API is used to populate the content management system (CMS) with the basic staff profiles maintained by the business. Staff can now update their basic profile to create rich bio entries including a list of their publications, automatically pulled from the NERC repository.
  • CMS users can create custom map segments from BAS’s own map projections and layers, pulled from their map servers. After adding marker pins and notes these custom map segments can be quickly and simply added to the website using WordPress shortcodes.
  • CMS users can search for images in BAS’s digital asset management (DAM) system and pull them into the CMS media library for use on the site. They can also populate and manage the ever popular ‘Penguin of the day’ feature.
  • Other API feeds are used to update vacancies, projects and teams.
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How it turned out

BAS have moved from a dense, hard to update website to one that serves their varied visitors well and integrates seamlessly with their business applications.

BAS website

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“You have helped us realise a long-held ambition to create a cracking new website that gives us an opportunity to showcase what British Antarctic Survey does – using the latest web technologies.  Thank you.”

Linda Capper, Head of Communications, BAS

Confederation of British Industry

May 4, 2016

“BV provided invaluable insight into audience trends, brought rigorous methodology to bear, and informed our strategic communications”

Adam Dustagheer

Confederation of British Industry

The CBI speaks on behalf of 190,000 businesses of all sizes and sectors. But its digital voice was muted.

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The challenge

The CBI website was showing its age – running on an older, proprietary CMS which was hard to use, and with some 50,000 pages – many of them no longer needed.

What we did

BV helped the CBI migrate to a new, open source Content Management System, and with them we are phasing this in across the site – starting with core areas such as News.

We also helped the CBI recruit for their in-house development team, who we then went on to train to code for the new (open source) system. They continue to co-locate with us around a day a week to ensure on-going knowledge transfer.

As part of the on-going migration we have worked alongside the CBI’s digital team to persuade a range of content owners to review and prioritise their content, reduce the ROT (Redundant, Outdated, Trivial) and archive the majority of their pages.

We are now working on refining the Information Architecture, jointly persuading senior stakeholders that the website structure should reflect their users’ goals and viewpoints, rather than CBI’s internal structures.

Digital first (and only): as party of this on-going process, we recently helped CBI move their printed magazine, Business Voice, to a responsive, online-only version – with dramatic savings on print costs.

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How it turned out

The most popular sections of the site are done, but there’s more on-going and to do, in this iterative site migration and revamp.

CBI website

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“Binary Vision have proven themselves to deliver consistently and reliably, but more than this they have worked in conjunction with in-house talent to strengthen and improve our digital presence. They have also provided invaluable insight into audience trends, brought rigorous methodology to bear, and informed our strategic communications.”

Adam Dustagheer

Apprenticeship Frameworks Online

May 3, 2016

“I would not hesitate to use Binary Vision again and certainly cannot recommend them highly enough.”

Linda How, AFO Project Manager

Apprenticeship Frameworks Online

Making a hugely complex digital service so simple to use and popular with users that it becomes mandated by law.

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The challenge

The brief was simple – to create a searchable repository for all apprenticeship ‘frameworks’

What we did

BV went way beyond the brief, creating a powerful and easy-to-operate digital service for users to design and publish legally-compliant apprenticeship frameworks.

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How it turned out

  • 1.-AFO-Home-page
  • 2.-process
  • 3.-online-form-pages
  • 4.-pdf-form-pages

Detailed content analysis and prototyping, iterated through repeated user research and wide stakeholder engagement (22 organisations), enabled us to deliver a hugely powerful yet simple-to-use digital service that belies its complexity.

‘AFO’ was so successful, with such high user uptake and stakeholder engagement, that it was ultimately legally mandated for every apprenticeship in England and Wales.

And with every framework following a very flexible structured format, we were able to provide a powerful custom search for all frameworks in England and Wales.

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“Ultimately, they act as an extension to our business; seamlessly integrating with our way of working… The work is then delivered on time and on budget with constant dialogue to ensure I am kept up-to-date with progress until delivery”

Luke Johnston Smith, FISSS project for BIS

Battle of Britain: Mosaic

May 2, 2016

“I can’t think of a better way to commemorate all those who died, or survived to live through the war!”

Mosaic contributor

Battle of Britain: Mosaic

Putting people in the picture.

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The challenge

How to engage and involve the public in the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain?

What we did

We created a crowd-sourced mosaic – where anyone could upload family or other photos to form part of a massive, commemorative image. And there’s a simple search so users can find their picture within the overall image and share it with friends and family.

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How it turned out

The mosaic was launched on the BBC’s ‘One Show’. It featured on the show again on the anniversary of the end of the battle, when a giant printed version – covering around 32 sqaure metres – was unveiled, live, on air.

moscaic unveiled body insert

This huge image is now hanging in the RAF museum, where visitors can use a simple app to pinpoint their own picture. Over 15,000 images have been uploaded to-date.

As well as forming a key part of the commemoration and helping to publicise it through users’ social channels the mosaic provided a much-valued opportunity for personal remembrance.

Battle of Britain mosaic

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“Thank you so much!  My lovely Mum is there!!!! And in a brilliant position, thank you!  The quality is excellent.  On behalf of my family, we thank you. This is such a brilliant accolade to all those lovely young boys and girls who gave so much!”

“I am so thrilled to have submitted my father’ s photograph and just found it on the spitfire.  The project is absolutely incredible. Will this ever be placed anywhere ( museum) for us to see? Thank you so much for enabling an oldie to do this relatively simply. I am delighted!!”

Mosaic contributors

MRC’s Interactive Career Framework

May 1, 2016

“The team met all our requirements to the timescale required, without sacrificing on quality”

Simone Bryan, MRC

MRC’s Interactive Career Framework

Bold interaction design with a focus on real people.

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The challenge

How to make something as diverse and complex as biomedical research careers really easy to understand, so researchers can make informed career choices?

What we did

Following an ‘agile’ (Lean) UX process of information and interaction design, we worked hand-in-glove with MRC’s Skills and Careers team to visualise, user test and then iteratively develop an Interactive Career Framework. And we brought it to life with real-life case studies, of researchers showing how their own careers developed.

Please also see our case study on the MRC website revamp.

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How it turned out

The ICF performed well in our post-launch site survey (for instance, for ‘overall user experience’, 87.3% of users gave it 3 – 5 stars out of 5, with 17.5% giving the maximum of 5 out of 5. n=126).

And its launch had a big impact on the MRC’s twitter profile – spot the launch date:

Twitter pic for ICF 1 - y axis data removed

MRC career framework

Building bridges across UK research

Having launched the career framework, we worked with these eight UK research funders to incorporate all of their funding schemes into a new ‘funding view’:

In the process, led by MRC, we created a common language and frame-of-reference for UK research funding, all for the very first time.

It was an object lesson in bringing stakeholders together, forging agreement by sharing with them the findings from our user research.

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“We’ve received lots of feedback from users via Twitter about how useful the map is. This was a very complex piece of work and the team met all our requirements to the timescale required, without sacrificing on quality.”

Simone Bryan, MRC

Barnardo’s Centre of expertise on CSA

May 1, 2016

“Their strength is in really seeking to understand what we are trying to achieve and doing what they can to contribute. They feel very much part of our team”

Cassi Harrison (Barnardo’s / CSA Centre)

Barnardo’s Centre of expertise on CSA

Helping an important new Centre of expertise on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) come into being, creating a model for future Centres of expertise.

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The challenge

Who are the principal users for this new Centre of expertise? And what do they need most? Vital questions for us to answer in developing their website. Also of great value for the new Centre as it geared up and came into being.

In the beginning

This brand new ‘Centre of expertise’ was created by Barnardo’s with Home Office funding.

The organisation existed only in name when we partnered with Lagom Strategy to help the Centre realise their vision.

The goal was to create a website to engage with their core users; CSA professionals across multiple sectors (policy makers, schools, hospitals, police, etc).

But for this new style of Centre it wasn’t clear who the principal users would be, or what were their most pressing needs.

What we did

Researching the Centre

At a kick-off meeting with Centre staff we worked out who we thought our key users would be – and what their needs were. We then interviewed more than two dozen potential users by phone, to get a better understanding of what the Centre could do for them – and what others were already offering.

These interviews were supported by a user needs workshop. Four small groups of users and Centre staff worked to create typical user personas and look at their needs.

And to validate the list of user needs and quantify which ones to prioritise an online survey was created. The Centre promoted this to all their contacts and we got 341 detailed responses – a terrific result, and testament to the interest in the Centre’s work.

Next, user needs were mapped by importance, and broken down by role. And based on these results we prototyped simple versions of the website – as Bruce Hannah said: “Mock it up before you fock it up.” – and we then research tested them with users.

We already knew that the Centre’s research – the key website content – would be the star and that technology should play a best-supporting role. What else did we learn?

Key users were not who we all thought, and their needs also differed to what we envisaged. In response we prototyped new ways to present the Centre’s work and revisited everything from how references are cited to how charts and figures are presented, working with the Centre as one agile team. We also helped create an online Directory of services, in response to user demand.

Up and online in two weeks

Also at the outset, we created an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) website in two weeks, to lay the ground for the emergent Alpha and Beta sites, and to respond to the hunger for information.

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The outcome

The ‘Live Beta’ website is regarded as a model for future Centres of expertise:

Centre of expertise on CSA website

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“The team at Binary Vision has enabled us to take a more coordinated and strategic approach. Alongside delivering the technical side of things they have helped us to embed greater consistency of approach e.g. through working with us on style and brand, content structure and building standards into our procurement process.”

“Their strength is in really seeking to understand what we are trying to achieve and doing what they can to contribute. They feel very much part of our team, as opposed to a traditional commissioner/provider relationship and consistently go above and beyond, for example by feeding us interesting, thought-provoking and practical ideas.”

Cassi Harrison, Director, Centre of expertise in CSA (Barnardo’s)

Some people think digital is all about technology.
We think digital is all about people.