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Redeveloping and redesigning CreeHealth.org with a user-centered content strategy
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Technical Features
Problem
Originally built on Drupal 7 in 2012, their legacy site had major information architecture issues, unclear user flows, and was not responsive to varied screen-sizes.
Our objective was to build a new site using Drupal 8 that included:
- a responsive, device-agnostic design to match CreeHealth’s new corporate branding guidelines
- multilingual capability for English, French, and Cree, including audio experiences for individuals with low-level literacy
- a content/data model that allowed content authors to update/manage content in clearly defined content types, which would efficiently disseminated content to appropriate areas of the site
- a user-centered information architecture, with a focus on ensuring clients know how to access health services in their respective communities
- a content strategy that supports content authors in making user-centered content
- a technical build with a a clear migration plan for Drupal 9
Solution
During our discovery sessions, we realized CreeHealth's site lacked defined content types, causing them to over-use basic pages. This meant information was haphazardly dumped into the rich-text editor (RTE), making it difficult for users to find and nearly impossible for content authors to update.
After completing a competitive analysis of health-services sites relevant to their sector and reviewing a sample of their existing content, we developed content types that matched their user needs and their internal workflows. When defining content types, we leaned heavily on entity references to ensure content authors only need to update content in one, well-defined place. This allowed us to build a content/data model that harnesses Drupal’s power in a way that makes sense for their organization’s content authors and public users.
We also ensured content could be inputted in English and French, with the possibility of adding Cree as necessary.
Concurrent to the development of the content/data model, our design team worked with CreeHealth to bring their print-based corporate branding guidelines into the digital realm. Through our iterative design process, their print designer worked with our web designer to create a site that showcases their corporate branding but also accounts for WCAG 2.1 AA requirements.
To improve the content authoring experience, we implemented styled content components by harnessing the power of Paragraphs. Rather than a stock WYSIWYG body field, content authors create content by adding pre-themed and well-defined Paragraphs. This ensures content styling is consistent and content authors do not need to know HTML to make design-rich pages that adhere to WCAG 2.1 AA and CreeHealth’s corporate branding guidelines.
Results
CreeHealth's new site launched Fall 2020. The site's clean and intuitive user flows have allowed their organization to better serve their clients during the COVID-19 pandemic. By harnessing the power of their community landing pages, which aggregate content from many different content types, they are able to efficiently communicate important health information to the people they serve.
Additionally, during the redevelopment, we only used stable Drupal functionality and avoided deprecated code. This ensured their migration to Drupal 9 was as simple as possible. We moved their site to Drupal 9 in mid-2021.
We continue to work with CreeHealth as one of our support clients, developing and deploying enhancements as they desire.