Bringing life to Plus X: A sector defining new website.

Challenge

In partnership with specialist regeneration developer, U+I, Plus X is a newly launched business that provides flexible working hubs across the UK. It aims to create workspaces in areas with unlocked potential, driving business innovation, community collaboration and positive social impact.

Plus X came to Gather with a brief to design and build an award winning, sector defining website that would place Plus X firmly on the map. Their business model blends flexible, dynamic workspaces and studios with access to product design workshops, media facilities, innovation programmes, growth services including marketing, mentors and funding and curated events.

Action

The new website had many objectives to fulfil from telling the Plus X story to generating business leads and allowing potential and existing members to book workspace and events. The unique Plus X formula and story were central concepts to developing the site structure, content and design.

Through our requirements gathering process and understanding of audience needs, we developed a set of user journeys to show the key interactions and touchpoints important to deliver through the design. It was crucial to get this right, as the site also needed to integrate with a membership platform and marketing tool, and the user journeys helped to inform where content should live, as well as future-proof the design, ensuring the site is scalable as the business grows.

We created a visual identity that reflected the Plus X formula, which connected the service to the end benefit. Collaboration is at the heart of what Plus X do and is where the magic happens. This magic is created through a combination of the space and expertise that Plus X provide and the resulting connection and impact it has on its residents. We showed this connection through a distinctive video and image style, which was an unusual way of introducing Plus X as a forward-thinking business. The identity took a mobile first approach that could also work across all social channels and any offline marketing too.

The final site uses a sticky navigation focused on member engagement, delivering a registration and visitor booking form, as well as a login for existing members. The main site content was structured into five key areas that informed existing and potential members about the range of services and packages available at individual locations, where related innovation programmes, events and news stories could also be found.

Impact

The new site launched with the Brighton location page fully functioning and a holding page for the Powerhouse, the existing site of the Central Research Laboratory. The about us page has proved to be the most visited, followed by locations, news and events and innovation.

Built on WordPress CMS, analytics have shown:

December:

• 684 visitors: 401 from UK, 261 from USA
• 1,681 page views
• 80% returning visitors
• 43% are direct search, 43% organic search
• Most popular page: About, 371 page views, then locations with 191 page views

January:

• 1,680 visitors: 1,226 from UK, 419 from USA
• 4,807 page views
• 82% returning visitors
• 41% organic search, 29% direct search
• Most popular page: About, 1,129 page views, then locations with 549 page views