Friends Provident Foundation
Friends Provident Foundation is an independent charity working towards a fairer economy and a better society—through grant-making, social investment, and convening. As the Foundation entered a new phase of growth, their website needed to do more than “hold” information. It needed to work as a clear communication hub: confident and credible, but also welcoming; rich in ideas, but easy to navigate.
We partnered with the Foundation team to refresh their WordPress site with a focus on clarity, accessibility, and maintainability—so people can understand the work, explore resources, and take action without getting lost in complexity.
Project Team
UX/UI Design: Federica Minini
Development: Sofiia Bondarenko
The Challenge
The Foundation’s content is nuanced: systems change, economic thinking, funding strategy, learning, and practical guidance for applicants. Over time, that can mean pages become dense and hard to scan, and journeys start to feel more like browsing a library than finding a path.
The brief called for an accessible, modern refresh that kept the existing brand foundations, while improving flow, navigation, search, and usability across devices. Just as importantly, the new site had to be manageable for a small team—reducing friction in day-to-day publishing and making it easier to keep content current.
What We Did
We started with discovery to clarify priorities, audiences, and the balance the Foundation needed to strike: credible and policy-literate, without feeling corporate or closed-off to people who want to engage with economic change.
From there, we reviewed the information architecture to simplify key pathways and make it easier to reach essential content quickly. We then designed a refreshed interface that improved hierarchy and readability while staying true to the existing brand, and carried out an accessibility review with improvements aligned to WCAG 2.1 AA.
Alongside design, we supported implementation in WordPress and quality assurance testing across devices and major browsers. Throughout, we focused on sustainable publishing—helping the team move towards clearer, web-first content structures where appropriate, and reduce reliance on formats that can be harder to access and maintain.
Impact
The new experience makes it easier for people to find their way through complex ideas and practical information—whether they’re exploring the Foundation’s mission, looking for resources, or trying to understand funding opportunities. Clearer page hierarchy and improved wayfinding reduce cognitive load and support different access needs, so visitors can get to the right place faster and with more confidence.
Behind the scenes, the site structure is better set up for day-to-day reality: a small team keeping a large, evolving body of work up to date. More consistent patterns for layouts and content reduce publishing friction, support accessibility by default, and help the Foundation share learning and updates in a way that’s easier to sustain over time.
