A strategic website rebuild for a pioneering charity
The Client
Dartington Service Design Lab is a UK charity and consultancy with a 60-year legacy of improving systems for children and young people. With a core team of around 25 staff spread across the UK, they work with local authorities, youth services and children’s charities to audit, evaluate and redesign systems that shape young lives.
Their mission is simple but powerful: To improve the lives and futures of children by transforming the systems around them.
The Challenge
With a bold new five-year strategy in place, Dartington needed a digital presence that reflected their future vision, not their legacy. Their website had evolved organically over the years, leaving them with disorganised navigation, outdated content, and minimal SEO visibility.
If left unaddressed, they risked missing the moment to position themselves as a strategic leader and engage their key audiences, especially commissioners, partners and funders.
The Strategy
Our approach began with deep immersion. We worked closely with the Dartington team to map their strategic ambitions, audience segments, and internal priorities. We also benchmarked comparable organisations' websites, focusing on accessibility, clarity and best routes for conversion.
Our aim? To build a site structure that made sense to every user, whether they were a funder, local authority commissioner or fellow nonprofit organisation. We created a clear, audience-first navigation system, supported by a homepage banner acting as a “quick finder” to key areas of the site.
Working with Yarn’s bold new brand identity replaced traditional photography with custom tangram graphics that can be adapted in myriad ways. We brought their refreshed visual language to life in a digital space. No stock images. No fluff. Just values-led design.
The Work
Delivered in just two months, our scope covered:
Strategic content mapping and user journey design
SEO keyword research and full-site implementation
Copy editing and accessibility adjustments
Rebuild in Squarespace 7.1 with custom components
URL remapping and legacy content migration
Client handover with a library of bespoke training videos
Collaboration was key — we worked in close partnership with Dartington’s internal Comms & Partnership leads, co-creating processes for feedback, sign-off and content handover.
The Results
17,500+ monthly impressions with a 2.5% click-through rate
Average keyword ranking improved to position 25
Vastly improved UX and stakeholder experience
Seamless legacy content integration and URL redirection from old, orphaned or archived URLs to the new site.#
Megan Gordon, Brand and Communications Lead at Dartington Service Design Lab, said:
“We found working with Cath and Gifty at Ipsa to be a truly collaborative process that delivered on our goals impressively in what was quite a tight turnaround time. From the initial pitch right through to considering the legacy of the work after they had finished, we found Cath to be considerate and very alive to the values that we hold as an organisation. Cath was attentive and responsive, quick to answer questions and provide context when we needed it. Gifty and Cath brought technical know-how that we were lacking internally, and always explained things to us in an easy to digest way that helped us understand the benefit of the changes that were being suggested. Cath took time to understand our brand and identity, and to think through our audiences, so that the creative outputs of the project were fresh, memorable, and useful. We really enjoyed doing this work and would recommend Ipsa to any organisation looking to strengthen user journey and website experience.”
What’s Next
Since the site was launched, Dartington Service Design Lab has continued to build momentum by releasing updates on flagship research to launching their 5-year strategic vision. The site now acts as a confident foundation for growth, visibility and thought leadership.
