Nationwide – Improving accessibility and help journeys for online banking customers
The challenge
Nationwide was relaunching its website and needed to migrate support content from an internal knowledge base system. The original plan assumed this could be done directly — but it quickly became clear there was no mechanism for that.
The risk? The business would be left without usable support content on its public site — potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of customers. Time was limited, trust in content design had been shaken, and previous efforts had failed to scale.
My role
I was hired as a Senior Content Designer to audit the knowledge base, identify risks, and deliver a scalable replacement. After uncovering flaws in the original migration plan, I proposed a new approach: building a content model shaped by real user data.
I led this work end-to-end — from research through to delivery — and brought on another content designer to accelerate output. I kept stakeholders engaged through fortnightly updates and worked in sprint cycles to maintain momentum.
My approach
Pulled 12 months of search and analytics data to identify real user queries
Grouped and de-duplicated queries to define clear article sets
Audited knowledge base content for accuracy, tone, and web readiness
Prioritised articles by frequency and user need, starting with mortgages
Created low-reading-age content templates that scaled across products
Introduced metadata tagging to align support articles with product data
Worked openly with stakeholders, sharing progress and decisions throughout
The outcome
52 support articles delivered on time — replacing 500+ legacy pages
Original timeline (18 months) cut by over 75%
Significant cost savings by avoiding reliance on a bespoke migration tool
Restored stakeholder confidence in content design after a previously failed attempt
Content model still in use at Nationwide today
What I learned
Raising risks early — and backing recommendations with data — builds trust even in high-pressure situations. This project also reinforced how strong UX content, delivered transparently and collaboratively, can solve complex business problems and create lasting impact.