Working Notes: #3

I'm currently doing discovery work with a charity ahead of a website redesign.

They're a complex organisation. Lots of services, multiple internal teams, external partners, and clients of all ages with very different needs.

That's just the nature of the work they do. Genuinely life-changing stuff, but complicated.

So we're working through that challenge: how do we take all this complexity and turn it into a website that's simple and easy to use?

One mistake I see all the time is letting organisational structure dictate the website. Users don't care about org charts, departments, and service hierarchies. They care about their situation.

The starting point is always: who are the people you're trying to help and what do they need?

That means thinking in terms of user journeys rather than services. Most people follow a similar path. They want to understand what help is available, check whether it applies to them, and figure out what to do next. It can be useful to design for that flow, not around individual services.

Words matter too. When you're writing, use their language, not yours. You'll likely have lots of internal lingo, and that's fine, but most people won't have a clue what you're talking about. "Adult mental health triage" might be accurate internally, but "I'm struggling and need to talk to someone" is what people are actually thinking.

None of this means hiding your services or cutting content. It means structuring information so people see the right thing at the right time.

In design terms, this is called progressive disclosure. You reveal information gradually, based on what someone needs at each stage, rather than dumping everything on them upfront. It lowers cognitive load and helps people avoid being overwhelmed by information they don’t need yet.

User interviews and testing are a huge part of getting this right. You'll be surprised how often people's mental models differ wildly from internal assumptions. Speak to the people you're trying to help as much as possible. Test. Learn. Iterate. Repeat.

There's no perfect solution here. It's a hard question to answer and even harder to get right in practice. But it always comes back to the people you're trying to help.

I know lots of you will have opinions on this, so hit reply and let me know what you think. I’m turning this into a section of The Website Redesign Handbook, and your feedback will help shape it.

– Marc

P.S. I'm pushing my Unoffice Hours more this year. Every Wednesday afternoon, my calendar's open for 30-minute calls with anyone who fancies a chat. Book a call and say hi!

What I've been writing

• I published two handbook articles this month: What is Discovery? and Understanding your users.
• On my blog, I published another three articles: My 2026 year theme, The discomfort around AI, and What I've been reading (2024–2025).

What I've been reading

Responsible AI Practical Toolkit

If you're thinking about creating an AI policy, Arts Council England have created a helpful set of guides.

How AI is redefining the way we find content

This piece from Clearleft confirms what we already know: focus on writing good, human content.

Why is quality so rare?

One line sums up where we are with AI: "Technology makes it faster to build, but harder to care."

What leads to good (or bad) strategy?

An interesting read on the five direct influences on good strategy.

What date should I put in the copyright notice in my website footer?

Good to know: "You’re automatically covered, so you can make your footer (that bit at the bottom of your website) less cluttered and take it out altogether."