Indicators of Yukon gender equality
Overview
Government of Yukon hired me to create a new vision of a report they had produced decades prior as a print booklet. For over 30 years, the government had been researching, funding, educating and advising policy with the goal of advancing equality in Yukon. The goal of this new report, re-born as a website was to highlight equality indicators, successes and areas for future action.
Strategy
Government staff had already researched and prepared a vast number of statistical indicators and other content before I got involved. They knew the collection of the stories they needed to tell and data they wanted to share were powerful and inspirational, but were unsure of how to design and build a website that would still be simple, accessible and usable for everyone.
User research
I started my work by conducting user interviews, then researching and developing user need statements, user journey flows and a blueprint for how the site could work and function. We tested early prototypes with staff and with people outside the organization to get their feedback on what worked well and what we could improve.
Design
After I had a good handle on what users needed from the website, I worked with government staff to design a more functional prototype. This was a low polish version of the site that we could test ideas with and try things out on, allowing us to move quickly and make revisions. As the site matured and started to take on its final form, we added new sections and methods of navigation to help users not only look at over 140 different statistics, but explore a historical timeline with almost 100 different events and listen to just shy of 60 sound stories.
Delivery
The website was built on Drupal and allows staff to add and update its statistical indicators, timeline events and sound story files themselves. Despite the dense information, the responsive layout can be easily accessed and enjoyed on a mobile phone.
The future
As Government of Yukon is in the midst of consolidating and transitioning its many standalone websites to Yukon.ca – a project I helped start and ending up leading for several years – the future of this particular site is unknown and it may disappear at any time. I've received many compliments on my design and implementation details of this website and so I share it here for posterity.