Project: Help & support re-platform
Client: Royal Mail
Company: EPAM
Date: October 2024
Skills used: Leading workshops, Wireframing & Prototyping, Usability testing, Requirement gathering, Stakeholder management, Content strategy
Intro:I worked with Royal Mail to redesign their fragmented Help & Support section, streamlining user journeys and consolidating content into a single, intuitive area. By collaborating closely with content strategists, developers, and the client, we created a flexible design structure that balanced user needs with technical constraints. The result was a more cohesive experience, easier to manage for the business, and a solid foundation for future improvements.
The problem: The existing Help & Support section had become fragmented and visually outdated. Different teams had created their own versions, leading to an inconsistent and confusing experience for users. It also made content harder to manage and maintain across the business.
Solution: I proposed consolidating everything into a single, centralised Help & Support area—using one flexible template. This would give users a clear, consistent destination for support, while making it easier for the business to manage content through one team, with fewer templates and components to maintain.
Brief
Royal Mail was transitioning to a new tech stack using Salesforce. The original plan was to lift and shift the existing design and structure. But partway through the project, it became clear this was an opportunity to do more, to rethink and improve the experience for users.
From a design perspective, the timeline was tight—the tech team had already started scoping and building. This meant navigating some tricky conversations. We needed to create designs that genuinely improved the user experience and addressed known issues from the current site, without causing delays or undoing work the tech team had already completed.
Initial IA exploration using AI
Working with a content strategist, we mapped out all existing Help & Support content in Miro. This helped us get a full view of what was out there—including duplicated pages scattered across the site. From there, we were able to identify overlaps and begin consolidating the content.
We then ran a card sorting exercise to explore how users might naturally group the information. I used ChatGPT to generate an initial structure based on the content list, which gave us a helpful starting point. After reviewing the suggestions together, the content strategist and I refined the structure—making changes where needed, to better reflect user needs.
Wireframes
Using the IA as a base, I created a couple of wireframe options to explore how we could structure the Help & Support section. These were used to identify the templates we’d need and open up conversations with both the development team and the client. We wanted to understand what was technically feasible, what aligned with user needs, and what the business would feel confident managing long-term.
I designed one version that aligned more closely with industry competitors—grouping content by category for familiarity. The second option took inspiration from platforms like Airbnb, using search and filtering to help users self-serve more efficiently. This approach was more progressive and intentionally different, designed to spark discussion and explore how Royal Mail might stand apart.
I worked closely with a content strategist to define how article pages should be structured and what templates would be needed to support different content types.
Together, we created clear visuals to present to the client, making it easy to show our thinking, explain the rationale behind the structure, and gather feedback quickly. These helped ensure alignment across design, content, and development teams early on.
Documentation and presentation
I documented the work and thinking directly alongside the designs in Figma, so everything could easily be pulled into our strategy decks when presenting to the client.
We also included examples of the current user journeys to clearly show how fragmented the experience had become. This visual evidence helped ground the conversation during workshops and made it easier for the client to engage with the core problems we were aiming to solve.
UI Design and documentation
I worked closely with the UI designer to create the final visuals and document the components and templates that would be needed. This helped the team clearly understand what would go into the build and start planning how development sprints could be structured around the design work.
Briefing Researcher & Prototyping
Documenting the designed pages along with our initial assumptions and what we wanted to learn from them. This helped shape a focused research brief, which I then worked through with the researcher to plan how we’d validate the designs and gather meaningful insights.
Creating a Figma prototype with 3 main tasks
Backcasting
I walked the development team—led by a third-party agency—through the initial designs to outline business needs and define what could realistically be delivered in an MVP.
Using a backcasting approach, I worked closely with both the Royal Mail team and the agency to align on a shared end goal, then shaped designs that balanced user needs, business priorities, and technical constraints.
Final design
The final designs focused on updating the category landing page. This provided users with a clear, streamlined path to their desired articles, while also offering a more manageable solution for Royal Mail from a content and maintenance perspective.
