Crossrail website design

A user-centred approach to designing and building a new website for London's newest railway and Europe's largest infrastructure project.

As Crossrail enters the construction phase it becomes more visible on London's streets. In readiness for the increased interest from Londoners, visitors and commuters, we created a user-friendly website, built on our open source CMS.

"We were impressed with the clarity of thinking and depth of planning that went into the design of the website. We are very happy with the end result."

Clinton Leeks OBE, Corporate Affairs Director

Introduction

After many years in preparation, during which we had helped Crossrail consult with Londoners, the scheme was approved by Parliament. As people realised a new railway was actually coming, the project started attracting a lot more attention, a lot of it online. The existing website struggled to cope with the heightened interest from site users and visually it was out of step with the Crossrail brand and with the times.

Strategy

Crossrail, Londoners and anyone else with an interest needed a user-friendly website. One that would make it easy to publish, and easy for users to find, information about how Crossrail might fit into the fabric and life of a capital city.

Objectives

  • understand the business needs and future requirements of Crossrail
  • understand the needs and future requirements of site users
  • plan, design and build a site around core user requirements
  • ensure the website is easy to use and update
  • ensure good natural SEO performance
  • provide a user friendly Content Management System

Insight

Whereas Crossrail will bring great benefit to London and the UK in the longer term, during construction the project is going to cause a lot of disruption. Following extensive user research we were able to propose that the new website should focus on dealing with public concerns in the project.

Solution

Through extensive consultation we were able to reach agreement to structure the content under only three top level sections, thus helping users understand the content and navigate the site.

The content includes the 3,500 PDF documents that have been published as part of the consultation process and the Parliamentary Bill. We have organised these in a logical and accessible manner providing access to the documents through different points of the site and have indexed all documents so that they are searchable.

The website provides information to users in their locality through a range of user-centred search criteria such as postcode, regional area or worksite.

Crossrail

As Crossrail enters the construction phase it becomes more visible on London's streets. In readiness for the increased interest from Londoners, visitors and commuters, we created a user-friendly website, built on our open source CMS.

"We were impressed with the clarity of thinking and depth of planning that went into the design of the website. We are very happy with the end result."

Clinton Leeks OBE, Corporate Affairs Director

Introduction

After many years in preparation, during which we had helped Crossrail consult with Londoners, the scheme was approved by Parliament. As people realised a new railway was actually coming, the project started attracting a lot more attention, a lot of it online. The existing website struggled to cope with the heightened interest from site users and visually it was out of step with the Crossrail brand and with the times.

Strategy

Crossrail, Londoners and anyone else with an interest needed a user-friendly website. One that would make it easy to publish, and easy for users to find, information about how Crossrail might fit into the fabric and life of a capital city.

Objectives

  • understand the business needs and future requirements of Crossrail
  • understand the needs and future requirements of site users
  • plan, design and build a site around core user requirements
  • ensure the website is easy to use and update
  • ensure good natural SEO performance
  • provide a user friendly Content Management System

Insight

Whereas Crossrail will bring great benefit to London and the UK in the longer term, during construction the project is going to cause a lot of disruption. Following extensive user research we were able to propose that the new website should focus on dealing with public concerns in the project.

Solution

Through extensive consultation we were able to reach agreement to structure the content under only three top level sections, thus helping users understand the content and navigate the site.

The content includes the 3,500 PDF documents that have been published as part of the consultation process and the Parliamentary Bill. We have organised these in a logical and accessible manner providing access to the documents through different points of the site and have indexed all documents so that they are searchable.

The website provides information to users in their locality through a range of user-centred search criteria such as postcode, regional area or worksite.

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