1. Challenge & Strategic Alignment

The project's goal was to create a personalised, proactive support space to meet the surging demand for help following a record spike in calls to the GamCare Helpline (a 17% increase in chats/calls in January 2023), with the cost-of-living crisis cited as a significant driver.

Goals

Business Goals: Empower individuals to manage their behaviours (e.g., setting goals, monitoring urges), ensure accessibility for a sensitive topic, and provide a trusted, scalable digital channel for support.

Strategic Kickoff: I spearheaded the creative direction, ensuring the design was rooted in compassion and focused on providing practical, measurable tools. The process began by establishing a clear strategy for structural clarity and empathetic design.

2. Process, Team, and Design Phase

The project involved a lean, highly focused team, relying on internal expertise and direct user feedback to shape the experience.

Roles and Responsibility

Design Leadership & Execution: Myself (Design Lead and End-to-End Designer). I was responsible for driving the overall strategy, UX/UI, and brand application.

Team Members: The core team included a Frontend Developer (WordPress specialist), Project Manager, Backend Developer, and our Commercial Director.

Design phase and testing strategy

Initial Research & Collaboration: We collaborated with an external agency for early-stage UX findings. However, we also conducted extensive internal work, including our own user research, detailed userflows, and thorough competitor analysis to shape the final product.

Branding Strategy & Application: I established the new, bespoke brand identity for MyGamCare. Crucially, I ensured this was built on and added to the existing established branding for the parent organisation, GamCare, guaranteeing brand consistency and leveraging the parent's foundation of trust.

Design Foundation: I structured the Information Architecture around key user impacts (time, money, well-being) to create immediate clarity.

Testing Strategy (Lived Experience): We implemented a unique, effective testing strategy by leveraging GamCare's Lived Experience team. This team actively tested the product, provided invaluable direct feedback, and helped us refine the design based on their deep understanding of what truly drives recovery and support.

3. Execution & Goal-Driven Design

The execution delivered a supportive and highly functional experience, built around core features that give users control over their behaviour.

Foundational Systems

Information Architecture: I structured the portal’s content to help users easily understand how gambling impacts their life areas: time, money, well-being, and relationships, creating immediate clarity and purpose.

Branding & Identity: I created a new compassionate and trustworthy brand identity for MyGamCare, ensuring the visual language communicated safety and support.

Technical Feasibility: I designed with technical feasibility and collaboration in mind, ensuring the final product could be successfully implemented by the development team.

A. Core Strategy & Self-Management Tools

Personalised Empowerment: The key features are self-management tools: trackable goals (e.g., money or time limits), mood and urge monitoring, and a personalised resource library. These tools encourage active, positive change.

UX/UI Design: I designed an intuitive and supportive user interface, prioritising ease of use and clear navigation for the sensitive subject matter.

B. UX/UI Components (Conversion & Engagement)

We engineered a system to drive high engagement in recovery and tracking:

Goal Tracking Solution: The portal was designed to allow users to set up and track goals, effectively turning abstract intentions into measurable recovery milestones.

Supportive Community Access: The design facilitates easy access to community features, demonstrating success with 76 Total recovery diary forum posts last month.

4. Measurable Impact & Results

The design strategies directly addressed the objectives of empowerment and scalability, resulting in significant user engagement.

Direct Resulting Impact

Goal Setting (High-Intent Conversion): The portal saw a tremendous 20,711 Goals set up and tracked within the first year of launch, demonstrating immediate and sustained user commitment to behaviour change.

Active Engagement: The platform sustains 200+ active users per month, proving the design successfully fosters long-term use and reliance on the self-management tools.

Summary

The launch of MyGamCare successfully delivered a personalised, supportive, and highly functional digital portal. It validated that empathetic, strategy-driven UX/UI design is essential for scaling support services and empowering individuals to achieve measurable recovery goals.