The COVID-19 pandemic created an urgent need for accurate and easy-to-understand information about vaccines. A team of researchers based at McGill University faced the need head on by building a website about specific vaccines and how vaccines and vaccine trials work.

The team first built a website with Wix and a variety of other data processing and visualization tools. That site showed a high public interest and the effectiveness of their “card”-driven approach of displaying information.

Having reached the limits of their web design and development knowledge, the team worked with Jesse Snyder of Rasika Consulting and MRW Web Design to rebuild the site using WordPress.

The new site we created made massive improvements to nearly every facet of the site:

• The site is now easy to use on phones, a critical feature for a site with a global general public audience.
• More accessible and search engine friendly data presentation allows more people to find and use the site.
• An approachable and authoritative design provides trustworthy scientific information to the public.
• Better visualizations of summary data, trial phases, and vaccine testing progress helps visitors quickly get key information at a glance. More detailed information about vaccine types, phase trials, and testing details are all quickly accessible to those who are interested.
• An easy-to-use import process allows the team to maintain a complex spreadsheet of vaccines and trials managed by multiple researchers and translate that data to the website for display.

You both have done an amazing job and you’ve made this such a smooth process. It’s been great to work with you!

Nicole E. Basta, PhD MPhil

While there are many vaccine trackers with different approaches and goals, we believe this one immediately stands out for its user-friendliness and ability to inform the public.