The brief
YE briefed OWA to develop and design a new Drupal-powered system enabling young people to list and sell their products – in a similar format to established online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon. This would launch as a minimum viable product (MVP) allowing user feedback and additional functionality to be incorporated into future development phases of the platform.
About Young Enterprise
Young Enterprise is a national charity working with more than a third of schools in England and Wales to prepare young people for life beyond education.
Our approach
From the outset OWA worked in step with the project team to ensure the planning was right for YE, its stakeholders and user-testers. This was critical to ensure the underlying logic of the Drupal implementation would work for the MVP launch and accommodate future enhancements once live. This collaborative approach intensified as the pandemic struck and necessitated the switch to fully remote ways of working.
Detailed scoping identified the necessary safeguards required for a system where the primary users would be minors. We proposed a detailed plan and custom logic to ensure the right user permissions and system control mechanism would be in place, enabling students, various moderators and admin roles to use the portal safely at each level. This included a multi-layer approval to ensure teachers and parents were able to help, manage and ensure suitability of products, without the student business-owners feeling over-controlled. This bespoke logic was mapped and integrated into the Drupal CMS powering the marketplace-based system.
How we helped
Trading Station is a project that benefited from a very flexible and collaborative approach to scoping, development and validation prior to its launch.
We worked very closely with the YE team and a wider group of its stakeholders and users to understand the requirements for students to be able to list their products online and help develop testing processes.
As part of the journey the young user undertakes on the Trading Station, it was important to YE that digital skills were embedded in the process, including: digital marketing, online customer service and safeguarding of an individual’s personal data
Since launch in late 2020, the YE Trading Station has continued to evolve and has had over 550 student companies list their products online and more than 500 orders made. OWA continues to maintain an open dialogue with YE to further enhance the platform and ensure it meets the young people’s ongoing needs.
