Coeliac UK

Enhancing disease management with design-led research

Family making gluten-free pizza

A new tool for those who need to live without gluten

Technology is now an integral part of living with Coeliac’s Disease. Whether it’s guidance when eating out or resources on how to support family and friends. Coeliac UK not only needed to transform their eco-system of digital products, they also needed to gain a deeper understanding of their community.

Key content areas for Coeliac UK research, featuring "For you", "search", "recipe finder", "information" and "user profile"

Research to improve quality of life

So to improve the quality of life for those with Caolic’s Disease, we needed to know everything about them. Where they shop. What their daily routine is. The scope of the research phase was far-reaching, not only to clarify this type of data but also to assess how Coeliac UK’s current apps satisfy the needs of their users.

A series of in-depth Discovery Workshops brought the objectives of the new app to life. User needs and motivations were interwoven with the new app’s user experience and the functionality of legacy content and features was assessed. This phase not only established a sounding board for ideas from the Coeliac UK team, but it also allowed our design team to learn more about what the organisation achieves for its community.

The findings from the workshops demanded on-the-ground communication with existing and potential users. We conducted a survey within the sprawling, diverse user groups affected by Coeliac’s Disease, and analysed the results of the answers they gave. Alongside discussions with users, we conducted detailed UX analyses of Coeliac UK’s current solutions. This brought into focus not only what needed to change, but what it needed to change to.

This research as a whole deepened Coeliac UK’s connection to its diverse community. It helped develop audience profiles, helped to audit their existing set of digital products, and established foundations for a new, more considered tool.

User profiles of "established coeliacs and "supporting family and friends" as part of Coeliac UK research
Profile of Andrew Main, participant of Coeliac UK research
Quotation from survey participant, reading "I need to find reliable and safe restaurants, so that I have the option to eat out"
Cropped survey data from Coeliac UK research

Figuring out future features

The research phase gave us a vast amount of information on what those living with Coeliac’s Disease needed from a digital product. It also gave us a number of conclusions on how the current solution was yet to deliver on these needs and motivations.

Mapping out the findings gave us direction to not only propose a feature scope - recommendations to Coeliac UK of what features would achieve what goals - but also establish a business model for the services that their digital product provides. Our strategic propositions alongside the Coeliac UK team began to make the new app a reality.

Multiple screens of proposed Coeliac UK app, showing "tabbed navigation", "intuitive search", "easy to use filtering" and "categorising filters to help users find content"

Visualising diverse user research

With a strategic proposition and a comprehensive set of valuable qualitative user research, we began work on a distinct user interface and a series of considered user journeys. The new app needed aligning with the Coeliac UK brand to develop a look and feel and a prototype full of clear, stunning collection of wireframes.

As well as an interface and a set of features that meets the needs of the Coeliac community, the user experience developed was a complete transformation from Coeliac UK’s current digital product eco-system. The culmination of research, strategy and UX & UI design not only strengthened Coeliac UK’s ability to fulfil its business goals, but it also developed a tool to improve the quality of life of those who need to live without gluten.

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