Deciding on a platform

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:

alt text goes here, innit

The second page was designed using a slightly more experimental layout with a ‘card’ pattern for the different sections:

alt text goes here, innit

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.