We’re spreading the love this Valentine’s Day with our new and improved webpages on marriages and civil partnerships.
When I was assigned this area in the content redesign project, I was excited to get stuck in. There was a lot of work to do around wedding venues, so I knew I’d have the chance to get creative and give the pages some much needed TLC to help show off the venues in their best light. But having never planned a wedding, the process was all a bit confusing to me and I didn’t know why it was sometimes called a civil ceremony and other times a wedding or a marriage. I had no idea about giving notice of marriage or when you needed to book registrars. So my first job was to make sense of all of this and break it down to simple terms for others who were just as baffled as I was!
What we know
First, let me give you some facts to explain what we know about our customers. As well as a high volume of page visits, the Dorset Registration Service receives a whopping 900 calls per week, which averages at just under 24 hours of call time! 70 percent of these calls are about weddings and marriages, with customers mostly asking what they need to do to get married and about the availability of registrars for their wedding ceremony.
What you told us
We put our pages to the test with users to find out how we could improve our online content to help customers self-serve instead of reaching for the phone.
Testing showed that I wasn’t the only one confused about what you need to do to get married – users said they’d most likely call the register office instead because the information was unclear online. More detailed information was available in a PDF download but users said that it would be much more helpful to have this on the page.
When we asked them to search for a wedding venue, they struggled to find a specific type, such as a castle, because the venues were separated by borough and district council area and there was no other search function. People also wanted to see bigger, better photos of the venues and more of them.
What we’ve changed so far
The user feedback gave us loads of great ideas and we sat down with our colleagues from the Dorset Registration Service to come up with a list of ways to improve the content, starting with the ‘quick wins’ that could be actioned quickly with the most benefit to our users.
- I created a new search function for wedding venues so people can search on venue type, capacity and other features such as reception facilities and disabled access.
- I rewrote the what you need to know page with easy-to-follow steps and action buttons to make it clear when the customer needs to do something.
- All of the marriage pages have had a mini makeover with a new colour scheme, banner and images too.
What’s next?
- A clickable gallery on the marriages homepage to promote upcoming wedding fairs and events.
- Each wedding venue page will have a new look and feel soon too; we’ll be saying goodbye to the tables and welcoming large photo galleries, icons and action buttons to take you directly to the venue’s website.
We’re collating up to date information from each venue before rolling these changes out so watch this space!
Bit early isn’t it? Still a whole year to go before it is Valentines day.