A Website for WAHWN
The principle aim of the site was to be as beneficial and easy to use for the network members as possible, but who were the members and what did they want/need? The first thing we needed to do for WAHWN is conduct an audit/survey of the network in order to learn about WAHWN's audience so that we could tailor make the site to suit. The network works with creative practitioners, health professionals, researchers, academics, funding bodies, and local authorities — quite a diverse audience. We developed and publishes an interactive survey form which could be taken anonymously in order to learn about the users, and to help us create a range of distinct 'user personas' that would later inform our design of the site.
We collected users responses to the survey and used the data to inform our 'personas'. Then we started working out what each persona would need from the WAHWN website, how they would use it etc in order that we could build the best site for the maximum number of users.
Bilingual Website Design
Webber Design's MD Rhys is a fluent welsh speaker, and this allows us to compete for and deliver bilingual graphic and web design work. The WAHWN site is bilingual, as is all of its marketing output. This is a condition of grants given by the Welsh Government and by the Arts Council of Wales. Webber Design offer a Welsh-English translation service through our translator partners.
Knowledge Bank
At the heart of the WAHWN website is the Knowledge Bank — a fast-expanding repository of articles, white papers, blog posts, toolkits, videos and other resources. The resources have all been submitted by members of the network and going forward one of the most important tasks for us was to allow a) Quick, intuitive and easy navigation of the knowledge bank to find the right resources and b) An easy to use upload process which would allow the knowledge bank to grow quickly with new resources.
Members, Users and Superusers
The dangers of allowing users to upload content to a website are well known, but this was an essential must-have feature of the site. Another concern was that the WAHWN was keen to build a robust knowledge bank, of academically sound and rigorous work — so some editorial work was required.
We ended up developing a 3 level system of user permission for the website:
- Administrators of WAHWN: This is the Webber Design team, and the head of WAHWN who have full access to the site.
- Members: Once users complete a sign-up form they become members, which allows them to post a member profile, and also to upload resources. These resources however do not appear on the site until verified by the WAHWN team.
- Supermembers: These are trusted members who have a track record of uploading high quality content that meets the remit of WAHWN. Once people become supermembers they can upload resources direct to the site, without the content having to be validated by WAHWN. This saves much time for the WAHWN team, automating the process of adding to the knowledge bank.
Accessibility Design
We take accessibility of design seriously - considering it for all of our web design jobs. However with WAHWN, accessibility of design was at the core of our design process.
We developed web layouts based on the colour palette of the logo, and with heavy use of the organic curvy shapes of the logo. When a strict colour palette is in play it is important to check what colour combinations may cause accessibility issues, and tweak, adopt, or reject combinations based on scientific data. We used the 'Web Aim' colour contrast checker https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ and only used colour combinations which passed the tests. Additionally on soft launch we collected survey data on accessibility from our group of testers, and tweaked further to ensure the most accessible site possible for our audience.
Marketing and Print Design
Following the successful launch of the WAHWN site in January 2019, we moved on to design some much needed print marketing materials to support WAHWN members at conferences and arts in health events. We've come a long way in our first year of working with WAHWN and going forward have a contract to update and maintain the website for the next three years.
