How Coherence Redesigned the GS1 UK Website for a New Strategy

GS1 UK is a not-for-profit organisation that develops and implements global standards for business communication, most notably the barcode. It has more than 58,000 members across many sectors. When it launched a new three-year strategy alongside a refreshed brand, it asked Coherence to redesign its website to reflect its evolving purpose and serve a growing, diverse audience.

The Challenge

GS1 UK is widely known as the 'barcode business', but its mission goes far beyond supply chain standards. Its new strategy focused on using standards to transform industries and improve lives. It needed a website that reflected the new brand, promoted the benefits of membership and raised the profile of standards in supporting UK businesses. The objectives were to:

• simplify navigation and improve the user experience
• update core messaging to match the new brand positioning
• increase conversion rates in the membership enrolment process
• broaden the site's relevance to a widening range of audiences, from regulators to business owners
• highlight GS1 UK's role in regulatory standards that help protect and inform consumers

The Approach

Coherence already worked closely with GS1 UK, having migrated its site to a more flexible platform and provided ongoing digital transformation support.

Discovery. Documentation reviews, stakeholder surveys and workshops clarified the needs of GS1 UK's audiences, their content requirements and what they expected from the site.

Content strategy. Coherence developed a content narrative from the new brand principles, audited the existing content and mapped ontologies for each audience, so every page met users' needs, answered their questions and guided them through their journey.

User experience and testing. Journey mapping, site mapping and user testing led to a more intuitive structure, in which users could find what they needed at every stage.

Design and delivery. Coherence refreshed the visual design to GS1 UK's new digital guidelines and built a flexible suite of components and new page templates. Improved CMS functionality lets the internal team manage content more efficiently.

Copywriting. Working with the GS1 UK team, Coherence rewrote page copy to fit the new content strategy and explain the organisation's evolving position clearly.

The Outcome

The redesigned website went live on 30 November 2021, with a significantly improved user experience. It is easier to navigate, and it presents content in context, according to where each user is in their journey.