OmniWorx Inc. designs a Modern, Staff Friendly and an Accessible Website for Scarborough Arts

Context

Scarborough Arts is one of Toronto’s six Local Arts Service Organizations (LASOs) mandated to serve the Scarborough region by offering inclusive, low-barrier and community-driven arts and cultural programming and services. They prioritize equity-seeking groups and serve children, youth, adults, seniors and families from a broad demographic spectrum. 

Scarborough Arts commissioned us to design a new website that was modern and accessible to the wide range of audiences they serve. They also wanted the website to be secure and easy for their staff to maintain on the backend.

Methodology

We kicked off the project by reviewing the Scarborough Arts' current website and then conducting staff interviews to understand the organization's needs and their expectations from the new website. Based on their staff feedback, we created a survey for the organization's management and stakeholders to access and understand their requirements. 

All of the findings were collected into a report, which we presented to Scarborough Arts along with a creative brief. A draft of the website was designed based on the inputs received from the presentation. 

Finally, we worked alongside the staff to implement and launch the new website.

RESULT

The final design solution is a website that is not only modern but also accessible to the widest possible audience. Along with designing for accessibility with larger base fonts and utilizing alt-text for images and ensuring the use of proper hierarchy on headers and body text, we included an accessibility widget that allows users to modify the website to suit their needs such as increasing font size and changing contrasts, text size and font as well as line and letter spacing. The app also allows for reading masks, reading guides and larger cursor size.

Learnings

Working with clients who are passionate about their work and are well aware of their audiences allows for an amazing collaboration, honest feedback and results to the satisfaction of all parties involved.

It is important to give regular reminders to clients for their part of the deliverables and to communicate when a delay may cause a backlog down the road.