Understanding what people really need

VoiceAbility operate in some of the most complex and testing environments imaginable. From prison services to mental health wards, they support people in decisions about their health and care who would otherwise be completely alone. 

There are countless services that VoiceAbility help people navigate their way through. However, users often do not understand what services are available to them, or how they can receive help. 

By restructuring the advice on the website to be situation-led, users can identify themselves and their context and find out more.

Making routes into VoiceAbility’s services more efficient

Just documenting how the various services that VoiceAbility offer support for took weeks of hard work. As a complex organisation working across the UK with different partner organisations and local health services, there was no single view of how referrals were handled in each location. While each area was a model of excellence by itself, the overall picture was confused and difficult to navigate. 

Once these services were fully documented, we went about restructuring them so people could access them more easily. The end result is a series of ‘decision trees’, which are presented to users based on their context and the outcome they are trying to achieve. 

The most complex of these journeys takes professionals through a series of eligibility steps to help them refer the person who needs support to the right service. In a significant development from this specialist-led approach, the new website now also allows people to self-refer to some advocacy services, and enables friends and family to get support for their loved ones.

By developing self-referral routes for NHS complaints advocacy and mental health advocacy in particular, VoiceAbility hope to reduce their overheads by guiding people to the support they are entitled to without having to pick up the phone.

In order to build the form structure, we identified distinct steps and common patterns across the different journeys. By splitting the referral process into three distinct routes we could utilise the right language and tone of voice in each context, to support people to complete each step.

Using language that makes sense to people

In VoiceAbility’s world there are numerous acronyms and professional languages that require a significant amount of experience to understand. This had been a barrier to users accessing their services – they simply did not understand how they could help. 

We redesigned VoiceAbility’s content to simplify as much of this confusing language as possible.

Leading people through complex services, one step at a time

Once users are in the correct service referral journey, it is important that they are not overwhelmed by the information that is required. Rather than request all the information at once, the process makes clear what will be needed and then asks for it one piece at a time. 

Contextual tips and pointers

Once people are within the advocacy system, they will become experts in their situation. While the new website does not lead with this type of detailed technical content, it still needs to be there. 

Wherever this content is used, guidance is provided through a series of progressively revealed ‘What’s this?’ elements. These streamline the content for professionals, while at the same time guiding those with less knowledge through the content safely.