Our RECBC project is an example of a large-scale, content-heavy, regulatory body Drupal website that meets WCAG 2.1 AA standard (at the time of build and AAA where possible) level accessibility, whilst delivering a seamless responsive experience on desktop and mobile. During the kick-off phase of this project, the Camp Pacific team and RECBC stakeholders met in various workshops to determine specific requirements for sections of the website. This was to ensure that each stakeholder could have their business objectives met.
This site also had a large amount of content that needed to be audited and either migrated, repurposed and populated, or archived. As well as the main .ca site, Camp Pacific was requested to consolidate a microsite, and deliver a design system which would enable RECBC could spin up their own microsites, as needed. This required a solid content and redirect strategy to capture where existing content would be consolidated, existing redirects, and new redirects required as a result of consolidation.
Challenge
https://www.recbc.ca/
Insights
Camp Pacific’s team performed a significant content audit which delivered a wealth of useful insights, helping lead into the UX planning and testing phases. In addition, we performed several rounds and types of user testing. These allowed uncovering a depth of findings which led us to make strategic UX and UI choices and ultimately, a beautifully designed site that includes guided journeys, advanced search functionality, an online knowledge base learning tool for licensees and many other engaging features.
Solution
Another challenge was that although licensees are RECBC’s most vocal audience, RECBC ultimately is mandated to serve the public interest and we needed to keep this in mind while designing the site for both audiences. We introduced a global alert banner to help to communicate any urgent advisories which the public needed to be aware of. This helped to more visibly communicate issues, ensuring wider public awareness. Building a site that was reliable, secure and had zero down time was also crucial as well as simply elevating the RECBC brand and design.
The RECBC brand was also significantly expanded for online usage. The current brand guidelines contained some examples of fonts, their primary brand colours and logo usage. One of our deliverables was a Digital Design Style Guide, which was produced following some edits to the logo to make it more readable online, an expanded colour palette to provide a wider range of options for the brand online, as well as tweaking some of the primary colour to ensure accessibility.
In addition, we included a colour specifically for consumers, which was applied to the navigation throughout their section of the website. This was included as a nod to the brand’s mandate to protect the public, and engage consumers. We wanted to exemplify that element of the brand’s personality through a more playful - but still professional - use of colour.
We also advised on image selection throughout the design phase and provided recommendations and guidelines for the kinds of imagery which could be used to elevate the brand and move away from the heavy ‘stock’ feel
We managed the project using sprints throughout the UX, design and development phases.
Results
We launched the two sites into one new site in the middle of March 2020, after an initial project kick-off meeting in May 2019, and continue to support RECBC with site maintenance and a number of phase 2 new site feature projects.
RECBC’s new website won the 2020 Communication Award from the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO), an association which recognizes organizations around the world for exemplary leadership in real estate regulation.
Testimonials
From RECBC:
“Your team has been wonderful to work with. You have been very collaborative and willing to work and shift with changing needs as our organization has changed through the year.”
“You guys are always really responsive. Your turnaround times have been really quick.”
“Your team has been excellent at being responsive to all our communications and questions. I think you did a great job of understanding our needs and familiarizing yourself with our current site.”
Post-launch consumer survey:
“The homepage is really easy to understand.”
“Buying a home is the best resource that I have come across. I feel like there is a lot of information on finding a realtor and first steps to buying and it is now easy to find what I need.”
“I like the imagery and I like how the menu items at the top are simple to follow. It looks really good and I understand it.”
Services
Technology
- Front-end Development
- Back-end Development
- Drupal Customization
- Dev-ops
- Self-Segmentation Technique
- Hosting set-up
- Monthly Site Maintenance
Design
- Digital Brand Definition
- Digital Design Style Guide
Strategy
- UX Strategy
- Content Strategy