Oasisplay is a registered charity who run unique activities for disabled and non-disabled young people in Stockwell, London.
They provide innovative and inclusive outdoor play and learning opportunities that enable disabled and non-disabled children and young people to lead happy, fulfilled lives and play positive roles in the community.
Oasisplay is funded by various local and national bodies and are often required to provide reporting data to justify their activities and spending.
As the charity grew, they saw the need to address some key areas of their digital presence and operations.
Their website was no longer fit for purpose, nor could it be developed further to provide the desired functionality. There was no functionality to allow people to book their services and there was no way to collect digital data so the required reports for their funders could not be generated easily. The processes were largely manual and time-consuming, which could result in inaccuracies caused by human error in the reporting and booking processes.
With this information we began addressing the objectives for this project.
To achieve these objectives, there were two core components: a website and a web application for data collection and reporting.
We liaised directly with the director and cofounder of Oasisplay to design and build these key components.
The website was designed to present the new brand, promote their services, and take bookings, while providing them with a platform to market and promote their activities and events.
To successfully meet the objectives for this part of the project, it was imperative that we fully understood Oasis Play and their offering. From there we could establish the requirements for the bookings system and ensure that the solution we implemented met their requirements.
We added newly written content and high-quality imagery with the aim of capturing the essence of their brand. A proportion of the content on their existing website was also migrated as it still had relevance and provided an element of familiarity to regular users.
Their brand represents fun, activity, and play so we wanted the website design to be striking and modern in appearance. It utilises large images of children playing and taking part in their activities to promote what they do. This conveys the services they provide to their potential audience and encourages them to engage with the brand to discover more.
It was important for the bookings interface to be easy and intuitive for the user as well as simple to manage for the admins. Various resources needed planning allowing them to be allocated to each activity such as locations and staff, so that their activities ran effectively. Their activities are available to the public, or for private hire; both of which require specific and detailed scheduling.
We researched and discussed several options before working with the client over several meetings to ensure that the result met their requirements.
Once the specification for the booking interface was clear we needed to ensure that the user journeys for each event type are carefully considered and that we presented an easy-to-use navigation system.
Our solution cuts down on the time spent on configuring and maintaining activity availability and pricing, freeing up time in the team. This improved functionality also reduces human error by automating activity availability, making it much more efficient. The option to pay online by card through a secure payment portal provided a self service booking interface further reducing administrative time spent.
The portal is a web application which provides an interface to record various data about activity sessions provided by Oasis Play. The data needed to be easily exportable and used to create reports.
Understanding the process of collecting and recording the data was integral to the overall success of this component of the project. This understanding allowed us to create an interface that was intuitive and easy to use by the staff. This helped to maximise efficiency and allow new users to use the interface with minimal to no training.
Due to the nature of entering multiple session records it was important that the user interface was designed in a way to reduce the replication of data. For example, if a doctor’s surgery is added for a child, this record is saved and entered as a new record which becomes available for subsequent child records.
There are three physical venues at which Oasis Play operate and their reporting data needs to be collected and collated for each. Previously this was done by physically moving from one site to the next to collect the paperwork before the long-winded process of collating it. By moving to an online web portal, centrally accessible by all the organisations user’s, they don’t need to move physical paperwork or digital files between sites. Now the chance of data loss or human error is drastically reduced.
As a value add, a record of children who are due to attend sessions allows them to create registers. From here they can record the attendance and generate attendance reporting which may be required by their funders. This streamlined method again saves time and admin.
One of the critical outcomes of the project was the director’s quarterly report. It took significant resources and time to aggregate the data and generate the report. This process is now fully automated, freeing up the time and ensuring the accuracy of the data.
Critical. Now it does it automatically.
On-going reviews and regular communication between us and Oasisplay helped keep the project moving forward smoothly during development. Throughout the journey, we presented development progress of the project and took on board their feedback. We considered the implications of the requested changes and advised Oasis Play accordingly.
By working with them throughout the project, we gained a deeper understanding of their business objectives – both present and future. This allowed us to deliver on the present project and plan for future development work.
Due to the sensitive nature of the content stored, it was important that we took additional precautions in how the data was collected, stored, and accessed. For example, we enforced the use of very strong passwords where user registration was allowed and restricted access to certain data and features via custom user roles.
Additional measures were taken to only allow admin users to export the reporting data. These actions also have audit trails, so future checks can be made to report on which users accessed data.
We have spent many years developing and refining our methodology to ensure that our solutions work reliably and to the required specification. The portal, website, and the booking platform were put through rigorous testing to ensure they functioned effectively and as planned during and after development.
Internal users of all abilities are mandated to use the system. Therefore, it is important that it is intuitive and simple to use. We took an iterative approach to testing each component of the project. This meant that our project lead carried out testing throughout the project, before providing access to the client for user testing.
As we closely collaborated with Oasis Play for this project, they provided feedback, reported on any unexpected outcomes, and suggested improvements within the project’s scope.
After the website’s launch, in-depth training was given to the key users who would be maintaining content and collecting session data. We provided an in-depth session on how to manage the resources and the bookings. We also gave training in content management, which provided them with the skills necessary to amend page content, create blog posts and manage their job listings.
As key stakeholders had been part of the collaborative approach in designing and building the portal, Oasisplay were very familiar with the system at launch. Our ethos is that interfaces should be intuitive, enabling our customers to instinctively use them.
This level of training empowered Oasisplay to have full control over their website and the portal.
With the ability to record their session data in a central system, Oasisplay can now produce accurate and consistent reports for its funders. This data is quicker to log, and we have reduced the likelihood of human error.
Significant time has been saved by the director, who was previously losing significant time every building the required reports. As the data is now input into a centralised system, they are able to generate reports that would not have been easily possible previously.
It is now possible for attendees to easily make online bookings on the forward-facing website – something that was not possible previously. Payments for the bookings are now also taken online, which has saved Oasisplay significant administrative time.
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