Equality People

Reducing isolation for young deaf people through a safe, fun and innovative web app

The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) is the UK’s leading charity supporting deaf children, young people, and their families. They exist to make sure deaf children grow up in a world that understands deafness and to make sure that services for deaf children support their needs from the start.

Overview

Brand Design
User Testing
UX Design
Web Design & Build

8,624 users in the first month alone
23% member conversion rate

The challenge

Although a version of The Buzz previously existed as a website seeking to serve a similar purpose, it took the format of an online news blog or magazine and so didn’t engage with the young audience. As a result we effectively started again, with a blank sheet of paper and a lot of imagination to create an online home for young deaf people where they could safely engage, build a community and have a fun experience all at the same time.

Branding
Web design & development
User experience
Search engine optimisation

Image for Image showing a selection of Avatars used on the NDCS Buzz website

The solution

Seeing a need for future growth into an app, it was agreed that starting as a web app would let the younger audience have an ‘app like’ experience on mobile whilst allowing NDCS to refine, test and shape the product for its future as a fully realised app. Based on this insight, we implemented one of our most collaborative approaches to designing ever, moulding our process to provide the client’s youth advisory board with opportunities to review, trial, test and feedback on everything we created, from scoping to final delivery. This shaped the functionality and what the site would do for its users.

8,624 users

in the first month alone

23%

member conversion rate

2min

average engagement time

Next Project

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