The Drum Recommends: Commended - How Manifesto Personalised content for people affected by dementia for The Alzheimer's Society
The Drum Recommends: Commended is highlighting Manifesto agency who personalised content for the Alzheimers Society to help people with dementia using their website.
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Alzheimer’s Society is the UK’s leading dementia support and research charity, working towards a vision of a world without dementia. To improve digital experiences for fundraisers, donors, partners, and people affected by dementia, they needed to rebuild their main public-facing website to offer more personalised content and faster access to services.
With the charity’s existing website being built on a proprietary CMS, it meant it was difficult to extend and develop. Using the Drupal content management system, Alzheimer’s Society wanted to rebuild the site to facilitate continuous improvement. They also wanted to improve the user experience by personalising content and helping people affected by dementia find local services more easily.
What we did
We collaborated closely with the team at Alzheimer’s Society to translate their requirements into a backlog of development tasks. By working in an Agile way, with a focus on user experience, we ensured that the features and functionality that would deliver the most value for the organisation and its audiences were prioritised.
We rebuilt the site on the Drupal 8 content management system, making use of Acquia Experience Platform. While no significant redesign was required – we followed the brand guidelines established in an earlier brand refresh – we used our deep knowledge of user experience design in the charity sector to suggest and implement improvements to key interactions and journeys.
We personalised the website content through recommendations based on user behaviour, to help improve engagement. Using the Acquia Experience Platform, we added functionality to track a user’s preferences during a session and then recommend content that matched their profile.
We helped develop the service finder feature for the website home page, which returns a list of local services for people affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia, based on their stated location. A smart search bar makes it easy for users to find their address with minimal typing, while search results are returned right on the home page, optimised for accessibility.
We brought the blog into the information architecture of the main site and designed new templates for both blog posts and articles from the six-yearly Dementia Together magazine.
Similarly, we helped integrate the Society’s online community, Talking Points, more closely, building a journey for new community members on the main website and surfacing links to relevant forum threads within similarly-themed articles.
How it went
After six collaborative sprints, the new, improved website launched in 2017. Organic visits are up 28% year on year, and the number of users has increased by 30%.
To find out more on Manifesto agency visit their Drum Recommends profile.