Maternal Mental Health Alliance
Website design and build, Giant Giving donations platform
Creating a digital experience that helped to elevate the presence of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and drive home the importance of the critical services the charity provides.
Bringing the importance of perinatal mental health to the fore
The Maternal Mental Health Alliance had a wide range of challenges that were becoming increasingly harder to overcome with its legacy website, meaning attracting new audiences such as members, funders, and lived experience champions was proving difficult. Additionally, ensuring people could access the right support quickly and easily, and also donate to this incredible cause wasn’t working in the way the charity needed it to. The brief was set.
Creating the new home for perinatal support
While the existing website had done its job, there were many aspects to it that weren’t working. The discovery phase identified the majority of content was weighted too heavily towards beneficiaries and wasn’t engaging prospective audiences, and the design was too corporate creating the wrong impression of the charity. A new approach would resolve these and many other issues, and we couldn’t wait to get started.
Supporting the 1 in 5
The Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) was founded in 2011 by people with lived experience and organisations who understood the impact of perinatal mental problems and had a commitment to improving the lives of women and their families. Thanks to the work of the charity, NHS investment for women with the most severe and complex maternal mental health needs has included; £365 million over 5 years in England, followed by £98m/year long-term funding; £2.5 million in Wales; £50 million in Scotland; and £4.7 million In Northern Ireland.
As a female-led delivery team, we were particularly passionate about this project. Working with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance was a truly inspiring experience. rom a project management perspective, we were dedicated to making the budget work hard, ensuring that every resource was optimised for maximum impact. Our goal was to create a digital space that not only supports the charity’s objectives but also makes a real difference for those in need of perinatal mental health services. It was rewarding to see how our efforts in streamlining content, enhancing storytelling, and creating a welcoming and accessible design came together to deliver a platform that truly serves its users.
Streamlining, storytelling and styling and experience fit for purpose
One of the biggest challenges for the new site was finding a better way to get the right information to the people who need it most, and this required a three-pronged approach:
Content streamlining
The original site was full of content, but much of it was organised based on an internal view, making it difficult to know where to look for what. We helped to redesign the taxonomy and creating new tools to help the charity improve their internal processes for how content is managed and delivered.
Storytelling to bring impact to life
Much of the original focus was aimed at corporate audiences rather than the end beneficiary, so we placed greater emphasis on the beneficiary story to engage the new membership audiences.
Styling
Much like the content, the styling of the previous site felt too corporate and gave the wrong impression. We completely overhauled the look and feel, introducing new, warmer elements including a revised typeface, illustrations and a revised approach to imagery that made the new site feel warm and welcoming to all.
We like the impact to do the talking
15% increase in engaged sessions
144% increased engagement rate
128% increase in resources page views
314% increased event count
