Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV) is a statewide membership organization that works to support its member programs and engage the public to play a role in ending domestic and sexual violence.
A Fresh Design
After a website design “refresh” by MRW Web Design in 2015, it was time to create a new, brighter, more engaging website that showcased WSCADV’s positive, forward-thinking work for change. With a new color palette designed by WSCADV staff, the site now features richer colors, welcoming photography when appropriate, and inviting, easy-to-read content.
The design has a simple-yet-unique character that focuses on making information on the website easy to find and read.
The Friends & Family Guide is specially written for people who need quick and easy support accessing information to support someone in an abusive relationship. The new design allows for warm and welcoming photos on pages like Leadership Development, a page primarily for member organizations. The new home page flexibly supports key news items as well as a clear introduction to the organization.
User-Friendly Content & Navigation
Due to the nature of their work, WSCADV serves a wide variety of organizations, professionals, and community members. After assessing the full range of website audiences and their key interests, a major overhaul of the primary navigation menu was warranted.
By focusing on using more visitor-centric language, the main menu now helps visitors find information quickly based on their interests and needs. Notably, after launch there were few complaints about moved pages or signs that visitor time on site was negatively impacted, suggesting that the information reorganization was easy to use.
I enjoyed working with Mark and really appreciated his approach—specifically, the thoughtful attention to the planning phase, settling on the architecture before we started building, and his ability and skill at finding a balance between hearing our needs and goals and inserting his expertise and opinions. I’ve learned so much through the process and am very happy with the end result.
Kelly Starr, WSCADV
After determining that the menu would need a large number of multi-word items, a unique left-side mega menu design helps visitors browse available information quickly.
The new mega menu system uses a variety of design elements and grouping to help visitors easily browse a large amount of information. The Resource library features over 200 documents and pages for to help people working in the DV field. The search and filters allow visitors to quickly find information they need.
Content revision and reorganization was of equal focus to design and development. The WSCADV web team did amazing work to reduce the amount of information on the website and improve key pages. As part of these revisions, the new design de-emphasizes the searchable and filterable resource library and focuses on user-friendly “guides” about key topics.
One especially exciting new feature in the resource library now calls attention to a featured guide anytime a user filters the library for a relevant topic:
Services
MRW Web Design completed the site over two engagements lasting approximately eight months.
Discovery & Scoping
- Site audit
- Staff survey and key stakeholder interviews
- Audience & top tasks summary
- Support full-site content audit and site mapping exercises
- Design discovery & analysis
Design & Implementation
- Custom WordPress theme with support for Block Editor
- Feature improvements to Resource Library, member listings, and contact form
- Content implementation support for staff
- Multiple WordPress trainings for site editors