Opening the door to lifelong learning for everyone.

The existing Learning Hub, built quickly and reactively during the pandemic, had never benefited from a proper UX process. Navigation was fragmented, the booking system was clunky, and the experience was identical for NFWI members and non-members alike. With no overall search or personalisation, and live and on-demand courses siloed in separate areas, users often couldn’t find what they were looking for. Internally, pulling reports was a manual, time-consuming exercise, and the lack of system integration meant members had to manage multiple login credentials across different platforms. 

The challenge went beyond improving an existing platform. This project was about building something entirely new: a charity learning platform that was modern, accessible, and commercially viable. The new hub needed to attract new audiences who had never engaged with the WI, while still feeling warm and familiar to longstanding members. It also needed to be financially sustainable, generating revenue through subscriptions, non-member course fees, and commercial partnerships, without ever compromising on accessibility or inclusivity.

At the same time, the newly developed VIA brand identity had to be carefully embedded into the digital experience. With trustee approval already in place, the scope for visual change was defined, but the opportunity to bring the brand to life in a truly engaging digital environment was significant.

We began with in-depth scoping workshops across UX, design, and development, working closely with the NFWI team to understand the platform’s current strengths, its pain points, and the ambitions of every stakeholder involved. From this foundation, we defined the research methodology for the project, conducting desk research into existing member data, running one-to-one interviews with non-members, and deploying a survey to 161 participants to gather quantitative insight into preferences, motivations, and barriers to engagement. Card sorting exercises were used to test and refine course categorisation, ensuring the information architecture would feel intuitive to the diverse range of people using the platform.

With a clear picture of user needs established, we built out the full site infrastructure and wireframes. Defining user journeys for members, non-members, and administrators, we created a modular page structure that would underpin the entire build. Usability testing with 42 participants during the design phase allowed us to validate key journeys, including course registration and the personalised dashboard, and refine our decisions before development began.

On the design side, our work centred on translating the VIA brand identity into a cohesive and accessible digital experience. We conducted a full accessibility audit of the brand’s colour palette, undertook a focused competitor analysis to identify best practices across the online learning landscape, and explored how interaction and motion design could elevate the platform beyond a standard course catalogue.

At its technical core, the platform is built on Laravel, with a custom CMS powered by Filament Fabricator, giving the NFWI content team full flexibility to create, edit, and manage pages through a modular page-building experience. Single sign-on via Keycloak means NFWI members can log in using their existing MyWI credentials, addressing one of the most persistent frustrations with the old system.

Stripe handles both one-off and subscription payments, social login options reduce friction for new non-member sign-ups, and Cloudflare powers on-demand video content securely at scale. A Looker Studio integration brings together data from Google Analytics and the platform itself into a single reporting dashboard, finally giving the team the clear, actionable insight they needed.

The result is a platform built not just for where NFWI is today, but for where it is going. Scalable, accessible, and commercially ready, VIA is a charity learning platform built to grow with its audience, broadening educational opportunities for everyone across the UK and beyond, and securing a sustainable financial future for the organisation in the process.