Women & HIV/AIDS Initiative
Website Design
The Story
A safe and empowering website redesign to strengthen support for women living with HIV. The Women & HIV/AIDS Initiative is an Ontario based organization building community capacity to support women living with or at systemic risk of contracting HIV. They needed an information-driven website and robust resource library to underpin their community, advocacy and policy-based work.
Cause
Gender Justice
Healthcare
Services
Web Design
Illustration
Details
The Women & HIV/AIDS Organization (WHAI) needed a refreshed and better-organized website, but their small and nimble team did not have the capacity to rewrite the content on every page from scratch. This meant that the web redesign process began with a thorough audit and content-mapping exercise to guide and affirm the site’s new navigation. Existing content was reorganized into new pages with clearer names and defined groupings, better reflecting WHAI’s approach to their work.
The site balances the needs of all audiences, including those looking to understand more about WHAI and their community capacity-building work, as well as those looking to learn more about HIV generally. To emphasize their impact and women-centred approach, community voices are featured throughout the site, providing social proof of the importance of WHAI’s mission. A more robust event and resource functionality also contributes to the website’s success within the WHAI community, along with greater transparency around team members and how to reach them.
The look and feel for the new website was carefully developed to avoid the often-fraught use of photography in such a stigmatized sector. Using a rich and vibrant colour palette, a floral motif was embraced as a way to give the site warmth and emotional resonance, capturing ideas of femininity, growth, and resilience. Illustrated hands are used in key areas of the website to bring a human touch to more serious topics. The site’s typography offers a counterpoint to the softer visuals, providing a cleaner and more institutional feel for the more scientific, socio-economic, and health-related content.
Project created at Loop: Design for Social Good