The idea of a “tech-disruptor” might seem abstract to the average islander – a term more at home in the deserts of Silicon Valley than the cobbled streets of St Helier.
But like many a restless entrepreneur before him, 16-year-old Lucas Crossland is ready to rewrite the rulebook.
Earlier this month, the Victoria College student declared himself as Jersey’s very own “tech-disruptor” with a tongue-in-cheek LinkedIn post denouncing the government website homepage as not just “outdated”, but “genuinely embarrassing”.
To prove his point, Lucas then redirected users to his own, self-designed version of the homepage, replete with “clean navigation, proper visual hierarchy [and] actual photos of Jersey”.
And he ain’t stopping there. “Next up,” the post finished: “Jersey Dairy.”
Express worked around Lucas’ lower-sixth timetable to get the low down from Jersey’s most in-demand lunchtime innovator…
How did it all begin?
“I kind of got into this quite funnily,” Lucas reflected over a Teams call. “When I was 12, I started coding, and I was just coding things for fun.
“But when I was 13, one of my dad’s mates needed me to program some kind of AI assistant for his website, and I said, ‘yeah, sure, I’ll help him out.’ ”
He continued: “And then I was like, ‘okay, I may as well test these skills,’ and I sold an AI assistant to a company in Jersey.
“I was 13, I took the morning off school in order to do it, so that was fun. I walked in, and they must have thought, ‘what is this child doing in my office?’
“But then, actually, that same client had an issue with his website, and I was like – you know what – I may as well offer him a better website.
“So I start learning how to make a website and everything, and one thing leads to another – and I keep on improving it bit by bit, because I see other sites and I’m like ‘oh, I could use that on my site.’
“So I started offering websites to companies in Jersey, and I’ve kind of just got my skills better since then, and I keep designing things for companies, and then I redesigned the government site.”
Taking on the government
Lucas’ decision to take a closer look at Jersey’s government website, he explained, was inspired by similar instances of volunteer web design.
“There’s people who do courses on social media. What they’ll do is they’ll look at people’s profiles and say what they’ll change about it,” he explained.
“And recently there’s been this – I can’t remember his name – but he’d design new marketing campaigns for companies.
“He designed the marketing campaign for companies like Coca-Cola and Tesla, so I thought I can put that onto a local scale, a smaller scale, in Jersey.”
Lucas added: “I kind of thought for people in Jersey, I can tell them design, and I can talk them through things like this – but we’ve got quite an old population, so I have to show them things instead of telling them things.
“I thought, well, the government’s website is awful – instead of doing a post about how bad it is, I may as well show them how much better it can look.”
But how does it all work?
“It depends on the type of website,” Lucas acknowledged. “But the government website, I’d say, I spent about 40 minutes on it.
“What I do when I’m redesigning is, first of all, I’ll look at a range of government websites. For any website I’m redesigning, I’ll look at their industry websites – and I’ll try and find the better ones.
“And then I’ll look at start-ups in the US, because they tend to have the best websites, so think companies like Stripe in the US.
“I’ll kind of merge all their design styles, and I nitpick the individual parts of each of those sites which I like.”
And when does Lucas find the time?
“I enjoy doing it – constantly improving small things, so in lessons sometimes if I’m getting bored,” he chuckles.
“I’ve kind of done this business side on the side of school for years now!”
From “embarrassing” to “coherent”
Explaining his redesign of the government website, the 16-year-old said: “What I’m trying to do is to make it a lot more structured, so when you’re reading something, it makes more sense as to where your eye should go.”
He pointed out that, for example, the “weather widget” appeared to present itself more readily than the “crucial” search function.
“I’ve had a comment on the post saying the weather widget is the most useful feature, and I think that kind of speaks to how useless the site is,” he laughed.
“If someone’s going to a government website, and the most useful thing on it is the weather widget, then you’re not going to use it to help with anything else in business, support, education, crime, justice, environment.”
I’d say I spent about 40 minutes redesigning the government website
Lucas crossland
Lucas’ redesign, he explained, involved distilling the information down to its essentials with a clear option available for users to search for other services.
“I’d say my design just has a better design language, which is prominent throughout the site, instead of just mashing together various styles,” he added.
“A better, coherent design style which makes it easier to read, and for anyone who’s going on the site, it’s easier for them to find what they need.”
Classic mistakes
And what, exactly, are the tell-tale signs of an outdated and uninspired website?
“Most websites, when they’re first made, will be left – so they’re stuck with a 2010 design style,” he said.
“They’re always on WordPress, which is really bureaucratic almost – it’s the typical design process.
“They’ll most likely never test out different design styles, it’ll be really blocky, and you can tell because every finance or law firm, their sites look exactly the same.”
Lucas continued: “The main issue with Jersey sites is that every Jersey site looks exactly the same.
“If you almost put a blindfold on to colours, and if you’re logo blind, it would look the exact same.
“That’s the main issue, your site is your storefront, and if it looks the same to every other store and you can’t look inside, they’re not going to see the quality of your product or your service.”
Reception
A further question remains: how do islanders actually feel about Lucas’ bold deconstruction of their government website?
“Because of my age, it’s kind of a double-edged sword,” the teenager acknowledged.
“Some people see it as this cocky 16-year-old who’s just redesigned the Government of Jersey website.
“The issue is that most people in Jersey work for the government somehow, and there were some people in the comments saying, ‘I disagree’.
“One of the arguments was it’s meant to be information-based, but why can something information-based not also look nice?
The main issue with Jersey sites is every Jersey site looks the exact same
Lucas crossland
“It looks nice, it’s easy, intuitive, but overall, people have been commenting, ‘yeah, I see the points you’re making’.
“It’s mostly agreeing with me and liking that there’s this new someone else designing a website.
“I think my age is a massive advantage on the island, because it’s a contrast, almost to a designer building this massive site.”
What does the future hold?
“I want to try and make this a bit more self-sustaining,” Lucas said.
“So I want to expand past Jersey, because realistically, you can only make so many websites from an island with a population of 100,000.”
As to the immediate future, Lucas has a “few different options”.
“I’m trying to get work experience at some AI start-up this summer in London,” he said.
“I’ve figured that no one’s going to just accept me with a little email and a LinkedIn message.
“So what I’m doing is I’m making a properly edited video presenting the opportunity of me coming to be an assistant.
“And I’m getting it professionally edited, and I’m going to print that onto a QR code and get that on a cake and send it to five London offices.”
“And hopefully,” Lucas added, “someone bites.”