Introduction

Accreditation is built on trust. For the Dutch Accreditation Council, known as Raad voor Accreditatie or RvA, that trust depends on more than formal procedures. It also depends on clear access to information.

Organisations need to understand how accreditation works. Professionals need to find documents, scopes, rules and decisions. Visitors need to check whether an organisation is accredited. Applicants need to know what is required before they start.

That makes rva.nl more than a website. It is a public information tool. Since 2020, District 35/WP Brothers has worked with RvA to improve that tool step by step.

Together, we created a stronger digital foundation for accreditation information. One that helps people find what they need, supports RvA’s internal content processes and can keep evolving as user behaviour, regulation and technology change.

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The challenge

RvA works in a field where information must be accurate, complete and easy to verify. But the information itself is complex.

The platform had to bring together different types of content: explanations of accreditation, disciplines, accredited organisations, scopes, rules, decisions, public reports, application routes and contact information. It also had to support Dutch and English content.

For users, the main challenge was access. They needed to search across the website, scopes, organisations, documents and news. They also needed clear routes to the most important tasks: understanding accreditation, checking accredited organisations, finding documents and starting an application.

For RvA, the challenge was operational too. The platform had to support structured content management, integrations, updates, security and long-term reliability.

The goal was not simply to launch a new website. The goal was to make accreditation information easier to reach and easier to use.

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Building a clearer digital foundation

The first phase focused on structure.

Together with RvA, we translated the organisation’s information needs into detailed user stories. These covered navigation, language switching, search, page structures, documents, news, contact, recruitment content and overviews of accredited organisations.

Search was central from the start. Users needed to search across the website, scopes, organisations, documents and news. Results had to be relevant, and users needed ways to refine what they found.

The platform also needed to connect to RvA’s accreditation data. For accredited organisations, the user stories described filtering by discipline and country, sorting by registration number, organisation and country, and a connection with RADAR. Scopes were also part of the information flow, with documents placed with the right registration number.

This created a platform around real user tasks. It gave RvA a clearer way to publish, manage and structure complex information. It gave visitors a better route through that information.

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From information access to application support

After the platform foundation, the collaboration moved into more focused tools.

One important step was the accreditation application tool. RvA saw that applicants did not always know what was needed before starting an application. That created uncertainty and could lead to incomplete preparation.

Together, we explored a quickscan. The goal was simple: help applicants understand the requirements and what they need before applying.

The design focused on clarity. Users would see how many questions were coming, where they were in the process and what their answers meant. The tool would guide users towards a conclusion or advice, instead of leaving them to interpret complex requirements on their own.

This shifted the platform from publishing information to actively helping users take the next step.

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Making accreditation information easier to use

The next development focused on publication and verification.

Accreditation information needs to be both complete and usable. People must be able to search and filter accreditations, then understand the information within an accreditation without unnecessary friction.

In the “Innovation in Publication” work, we explored how accreditations could be made more accessible. The question was clear: how do we make accreditation information easier to search, filter and read?

This led to design exploration around search, filtering and the way information is presented within an accreditation. The work built on the same principle as the earlier platform: start with the user task, then shape design and technology around it.

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Managing a platform that cannot stand still

A platform like rva.nl is never finished.

By 2025, WP Brothers was managing both rva.nl and publieksverslag.rva.nl. The work included updates, backups, uptime checks, traffic monitoring, security and performance. The collaboration also included reporting, support hours, WCAG audits and attention to legal and technical developments.

This matters because RvA’s digital environment has to remain trustworthy. Security, accessibility, performance and compliance are not separate from the user experience. They are part of it.

The long-term collaboration made it possible to move beyond reactive fixes. WP Brothers took a signalling role: monitoring the platform, identifying risks and bringing forward improvements before they became bigger problems.

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What the data showed

By 2025, rva.nl had become an intensively used documentation and verification platform.

The data showed a reported growth of +354%.

These numbers show the role of the platform. People do not only visit rva.nl to read general information. They use it to verify, search, download and act.

The same data also showed where the next improvements should focus. Visitors found information, but often took few follow-up actions. Mobile traffic grew strongly, but performed worse than desktop. The homepage was both a major entry point and exit point. The search function was heavily used, which made search quality and task-based navigation even more important.

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The next direction

The 2025 audit translated those findings into a clear direction.

The main opportunity was to redesign rva.nl around the core task: checking accreditation. That means making the most important routes more visible and reducing the effort it takes to find documents, verify organisations or contact RvA.

Recommended next steps included a more task-focused homepage, a stronger search experience, filters, autosuggest, status labels, web versions of important PDFs, a shorter contact form, better mobile UX and clearer microconversions.

This is where the value of a long-term collaboration becomes clear. Because we had worked on the platform foundation, application support, publication, management and reporting, we could connect the next improvements to real platform behaviour.

The direction was not based on assumptions. It came from how people actually used the platform.

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Long-term impact

Since 2020, the collaboration between RvA and District 35/WP Brothers has moved through several layers of digital maturity.

First, we helped structure complex accreditation information into a clearer digital platform. Then we improved specific user journeys, such as accreditation applications and accreditation publication. Over time, we added continuous management, monitoring, accessibility checks, security attention and data-led optimisation.

Each step built on the one before it.

That is the difference between delivering a website and building a digital platform with long-term value. A website can go live. A platform has to keep working, keep improving and keep serving the organisation’s goals.

For RvA, that goal is clear: make accreditation information accessible, reliable and usable for the people who depend on it.

Together, we continue to improve the digital foundation that supports that goal.