Redesigning a Website for Inclusion, Not Just Conversion
Client: Exeter UNESCO City of Literature
Type: Non-profit, Arts & Heritage
Background
The client is one of over 200 (CHECK) UNESCO cities of literature around the world designated to celebrate, inspire, educate and empower readers, writers and champion those in the literary arts. Based out of Exeter's premier arts centre, The Exeter Phoenix (LINK), they comprise of an inclusive team of trustees and staff. Exeter City of Literature genuinely walk the talk when it comes to their values. At the heart of everything they do is a commitment to treating people with real dignity and respect, and they're explicit about what that means in practice, calling out racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and other forms of discrimination by name rather than hiding behind vague language. They hold themselves to this high standard, too, not just in the quality of their literary programming, but in how they show up for under-represented communities. They're not just ticking boxes; they're actively working to make sure those voices shape their policies, their projects, and who sits at the decision-making table. What's particularly refreshing is their honesty about the process. They acknowledge that becoming truly inclusive is ongoing work, that nobody gets it right every time, and that what you don't say or do matters just as much as what you do. This kind of organisational self-awareness is rarer than it should be.
The Brief
As a values-led organisation, Exeter City of Literature wanted to update their website in line with their core values. This challenge appealed to Ipsa Consulting because it's quite unusual to have this as a goal. Oftentimes in digital marketing we're required to optimise a website based on what is going to achieve the best conversions or attract the most traffic.
Our Approach
We devised a rigorous process to collect and evaluate opinions from across their community. First we created a weighting system that scored each person's response according to their characteristics - with a higher, more equitable score, for those traditionally marginalised. Then we curated a list of personal, qualitative and quantitative questions to ask to three groups of people via a wide-spread online survey, a series of 1:1 UX interviews, and an in person focus group. Participants were awarded National Book Tokens as a thank you for taking part.
We experienced a lot of initial interest in the survey and used that to recruit interviewees and by spending some budget on Meta to advertise the survey to a wide audience, we were able to generate additional interest and fill all the UX interview slots and gather over 100 survey responses. The focus group was made up of a group of MA Publishing students from the University of Exeter.
Our Recommendations
The combined responses were weighted manually and scored against the original criteria. Across all three research methods, five themes came through clearly and consistently:
Accessibility first: contrast, autoplay video, and animation are creating real barriers for users with visual, dyslexic, and neurodivergent needs, and are the highest-scoring findings overall.
Explain the UNESCO designation: participants at every stage wanted to understand what it means for Exeter specifically. The interest is there; the site just needs to meet it. They'd heard of UNESCO before, but wondered how this was relevant to them and the organisation.
Add a search function: the most commonly raised practical gap. Users expected it and were surprised it wasn't there.
Improve the events experience: load speed, filtering, and listing card detail (price, location, recurrence) all need attention, but the foundation is strong and well-regarded.
Restructure, don't reduce: the breadth of content was consistently praised. The ask is to present it more visually and consistently, with tiles over text blocks, colour coding, and a unified layout across pages.
The Results
Based on accessibility reports, benchmarked before and after, we improved the overall website to a position of 95% according to WCAG AAA scores, reduced carbon emissions by 7%, and improved on page and technical SEO.