Transforming Discovery for the Home of Longitudinal Research

Making 177,000+ variables intuitive to explore

CLOSER is the interdisciplinary partnership bringing together the UK’s leading longitudinal population studies, the UK Data Service and The British Library.

Through its Discovery platform, researchers can explore:

• 467 datasets
• 177,686 variables
• 327 questionnaires
• 47,183 questions

It’s a vast and invaluable research resource.

But navigating it wasn’t easy.

The challenge

CLOSER Discovery had evolved into a powerful metadata search tool built on Colectica Repository platform. Functionally, it worked.

Experientially, it didn’t.

The interface felt technical and unintuitive - more developer-designed than user-designed. For researchers trying to locate specific variables or explore questionnaires across multiple longitudinal studies, the journey was complex and, at times, frustrating.

CLOSER needed to:

• Make search and browse more intuitive
• Improve clarity across datasets, questionnaires and variables
• Support both expert and less technical users
• Retain the power of the underlying metadata engine
• Align the experience with the importance and authority of the CLOSER brand

This wasn’t about rebuilding the engine. It was about making it usable.

Our approach

1. User research and discovery

We began by understanding the real-world needs of researchers and data users:

• How they search / explore
• What terminology they use
• Where they struggle
• What “success” looks like when exploring longitudinal data

This helped us move beyond assumptions and design for actual research workflows.

2. Reframing the experience architecture

The scale of the platform required clear structural thinking.

We worked to:

• Clarify the hierarchy between datasets, questionnaires, variables and questions
• Simplify search interactions
• Reduce cognitive load across complex results pages
• Introduce clearer pathways for browsing vs targeted search

The goal was not to remove complexity - the data is inherently complex - but to make that complexity understandable.

3. UX and UI design

We redesigned the interface to feel:

• More intuitive
• More consistent
• More accessible
• Visually aligned with a research-led organisation

Key improvements included:

• Clearer filtering and faceting
• Improved metadata presentation
• More legible results layouts
• Better visual cues for navigating between levels of data
• A design system that brought coherence across the platform

Before, it felt like a database. After, it felt like a research tool.

4. Designing for implementation

The Discovery platform runs on the Colectica Repository system - a metadata management system designed to centrally store and manage data resources, enabling distribution and discovery.

Working with the Colectica Repository documentation, we:

• Produced detailed UI designs
• Created a full design system for the team to use moving forward
• Defined interaction patterns
• Wrote clear acceptance criteria
• Ensured everything was technically feasible

The Colectica team then implemented the approved designs within their platform environment.

This collaborative model ensured design integrity while leveraging the power of the existing enterprise system.

The result

CLOSER Discovery is now:

• Significantly more intuitive to navigate
• Easier to search and filter
• Clearer in how it presents complex metadata
• More accessible to a broader range of users

Researchers can more confidently explore nearly half a million data points across the UK’s most important longitudinal studies- without needing to “decode” the interface first.

The platform now reflects the importance of the research it supports.

What this project demonstrates

• Deep UX expertise in complex data environments
• Experience working with enterprise metadata platforms
• The ability to design within technical constraints
• Strong collaboration with third-party platform providers
• A long-standing partnership with UCL and its research centres

Services provided

• User research
• UX strategy
• Information architecture
• UI design
• Accessibility-focused design
• Technical specification and acceptance criteria

A long-standing partnership

This project forms part of Bravand’s 10+ year relationship with UCL, including work with:

• UCL Social Research Institute / Centre for Longitudinal Studies
• UCL Department of Economics
• UCL Culture
• UCL Institute of Education
• UCL Innovation and Enterprise / East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone
• Stone Centre at UCL