LCA Education —
Compliance
Website

A new compliance website for LCA Education, designed and delivered in under four weeks. Built to meet UK regulatory requirements, structured for clarity, and developed with a mobile-first approach.

Client
LCA Education
Timeline
2 weeks design
2 weeks revision
Role
UX & Product Designer
Freelance
LCA Education compliance website

Challenge

A new regulation.
A site that didn't exist.

LCA Education needed a dedicated compliance website to meet new UK government regulatory requirements introduced in April 2026. The site needed to publicly surface key institutional documents — governance, policies, regulations, and partnerships — in a way that was accessible, navigable, and credible.

They came to me with a domain, a logo, a colour direction, and a list of pages. The structure, the design, and the decisions were mine to make.

The brief covered eight pages: About Us, Meet the Team, Partnerships (UCLan and UoBM), Governance, Regulations, and Policies & Procedures. Each had different content types and different user needs — a governance page is not read the same way as a team page.

The target audience is primarily institutional — students, regulators, partner universities — so the design needed to carry authority without feeling cold.

Page Map

Process

Research first,
then build.

Before touching a wireframe, I explored how similar institutions present compliance content. Oxford, Cambridge, and several UK higher education providers informed the structural decisions — how to handle heavy document pages, multiple navigation routes, and hierarchy across dense content.

Week 1

Research

Reviewed university compliance sites — Oxford, Cambridge, and others. Identified navigation patterns, document display conventions, and mobile behaviour.

Week 1

Structure & IA

Mapped the eight pages, defined content hierarchy, and proposed two colour directions from the brand guidelines provided.

Week 2

Low-fi Wireframes

Built low-fidelity wireframes covering all pages — desktop and mobile. Mobile-first approach throughout, with multiple navigation routes built in.

Week 3–4

Revision & Handoff

Two-week revision cycle with the client. Blue colour scheme selected. Final files handed to developer, built to allow content editing post-launch.

Colour proposal 1
Colour proposal 2 — blue (selected)

Design

Eight pages.
One coherent system.

Mobile-first
throughout

Every page was designed mobile-first. Compliance content is often accessed on the go — by students checking policies, partners reviewing governance documents. The mobile experience was not an afterthought.

  • Touch-friendly navigation and document links
  • Readable typography at small scale
  • Stacked layouts that don't lose hierarchy on narrow screens
  • Multiple navigation paths to the same content
Mobile wireframe — home

Home

Mobile wireframe — governance

Governance

Mobile wireframe — partnerships

Policies

Desktop
structure

The desktop layout gave space to present institutional content with authority. Clear hierarchy, consistent spacing, and a colour palette that communicates trust without feeling corporate.

  • Grid-based layouts adapted per page type
  • Blue selected from two proposed colour directions
  • Typography system consistent across all eight pages
  • Developer-editable — content can be updated post-launch
Desktop mockup — Home
Desktop mockup — About us
Desktop mockup — Partnerships

Outcome

Designed, handed off,
going live this summer.

The full design was delivered within the agreed timeline and handed off to the development team. The site is built to allow the client to edit and post content independently. It is currently in development and expected to go live summer 2026 at lcaeducation.ac.uk.

4 wks

Brief to developer handoff, including revision

8

Pages designed across compliance, governance and partnership content

2

Colour directions proposed — blue selected

Also part of this engagement

UX Audit — Three University Websites

LCA UX Audit

LCA Education —
UX Audit

A comprehensive UX audit across three university websites for LCA Education. Delivered in two weeks — extensive report, Excel analysis, annotated screenshots, and actionable recommendations.

Client
LCA Education
Timeline
2 weeks
Deliverables
Report, Excel analysis,
annotated screenshots
LCA UX Audit

Challenge

Three sites.
One standard to meet.

LCA Education needed to understand how their partner and affiliated university websites performed from a UX perspective,

what was working, what wasn't, and what needed to change.

The audit was not cosmetic. It was a functional assessment with commercial and compliance implications.

I was given the brief and two weeks. No template, no prior audit to reference.

The three websites spanned different institutions with different design systems, different content strategies, and different user bases. The audit needed to be consistent across all three while being specific enough to be actionable for each.

Process

Structured review.
Evidence at every step.

Each site was reviewed against a consistent set of UX criteria — navigation, accessibility, content hierarchy, mobile performance, and user journeys. Findings were captured in Excel with severity ratings, annotated screenshots, and prioritised recommendations.

Day 1–3

Heuristic Review

Systematic review of all three sites against UX heuristics. Every issue logged with severity, location, and evidence.

Day 4–6

Annotated Screenshots

Key issues captured visually. Annotations mark exact problem areas with clear explanation — built to be read by non-designers.

Day 7–9

Excel Analysis

All findings structured in Excel — categorised by site, issue type, severity, and priority. Filterable and shareable.

Day 10–14

Report & Recommendations

Full written report with findings, analysis, and prioritised recommendations delivered to the client.

Findings

What I found.
And what I recommended.

Navigation
issues across all three

All three sites showed inconsistencies in navigation structure — labels that didn't match user expectations, buried content, and limited secondary navigation routes.

  • ARU London — Application status not visible until buried in entry requirements; Apply CTA leads to an intermediate page rather than a direct form
  • UCLan — No filter or search on course listing page, making course discovery significantly harder for users
  • UGM — Strongest general usability of the three, but shared the same structural navigation inconsistencies
  • Recommendation — Flatten navigation architecture, surface critical information earlier in the user journey, and standardise labelling conventions across all three sites

Mobile
performance gaps

Mobile usability was inconsistent across all three sites — hamburger navigation was either skipped by screen readers or announced in a meaningless way, reflecting a desktop-first approach without mobile validation.

  • ARU London — Site header and navigation disappear entirely during the application flow, leaving users disoriented
  • UCLan — Abrupt colour theme changes mid-scroll disorient users on course pages
  • UGM — Best performing for general usability but shared the same mobile accessibility failures
  • Recommendation — Persistent navigation throughout all user journeys; validate all key pages on mobile before release

Content
hierarchy

Content was written for institutional needs rather than user needs — dense, unstructured, and with critical information often buried in downloadable documents.

  • ARU London — Application open/closed status not communicated clearly; requires development work to surface prominently
  • UCLan — Course pages lack clear calls to action; content hierarchy makes it difficult to identify next steps
  • UGM — Course discovery journey was the clearest of the three; a positive outlier in content structure
  • Recommendation — Rewrite key pages using plain language; surface critical information on-page rather than in PDFs; add clear CTAs to every key page

Accessibility
gaps

WCAG 2.1 AA failures were identified across all three sites — including critical failures that would prevent users relying on keyboard navigation or screen readers from completing core tasks.

  • All three sites — No visible keyboard focus indicator sitewide; a critical WCAG failure that excludes motor-impaired users
  • All three sites — No meaningful alt text on images; visually impaired users receive no image content information
  • All three sites — ARIA roles missing on hamburger menus; screen readers misidentify buttons as links
  • Recommendation — Implement visible keyboard focus indicator sitewide; add meaningful alt text to all non-decorative images; fix ARIA roles on all interactive elements — these three fixes alone resolve the most critical failures across all sites

Outcome

A report they could
actually act on.

The full audit was delivered within two weeks — report, Excel analysis, and annotated screenshots. Every recommendation was prioritised so the client knew what to address first.

3

University websites audited

2 wks

Brief to full delivery

62

Issues identified

Also part of this engagement

Compliance Website Design

LCA Compliance Website

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