In terms of coming up with a deliverable solution, there was a decision to be made around the platform that the the site should sit on.
We considered a number of things, including content types within Whitehall Publisher, and how much flexibility that would give us.
We also discussed a more bespoke solution that could be hosted on a subdomain of education.gov.uk, and give us a little more flexibility with the information architecture - but still adhering to the gov.uk design system.
To help inform the decision we tested two pages with a small number of users.
The first page was designed to reflect how a page created in Whitehall Publisher might look:
The second page was designed using a slightly more experimental layout with a ‘card’ pattern for the different sections:
Both versions tested well but it was felt that the second version was easier to scan, with potentially less scrolling needed.
Ultimately the platform decision was based on a number of factors including development considerations, timelines and costs, but from a design perspective it was felt that the more bespoke route of our own hosted subdomain would enable us to better meet users’ needs.