SFU’s Centre for Dialogue Website Redesign

The Centre for Dialogue underwent a period of rapid growth. A side effect of this growth was that the brand narrative had not kept up with the complexity of projects and achievements throughout the Centre. One of the ways this challenge manifested itself publicly was through the website, which had unclear user journeys to understand the Centre’s mission for its various audiences.

To address this challenge in my role as in-house communications manager, I initiated a website redesign informed by user testing. My role was to plan and lead the first phase of the project through to completion and create a plan for future phases.

Key Features for SFU’s Centre for Dialogue Website Redesign

Together with the three other members of the communications team, we incorporated three key features into the site’s redesign: a robust consultation process, multiple ways to explore related content, and a clearer user journey.

Robust Consultation Process

At the Centre for Dialogue, there were multiple departments to consult prior to redesigning the site. Some departments had strong visions for their sections of the site and others were new to this type of process. In response to this need, I created a personalized consultation process for each department that addressed their unique needs. These various stakeholder meetings helped to build project buy-in, collect functionality requests, and manage expectations. Furthermore, the process also involved conducting user testing to inform the redesign requirements and support decision-making and consensus-building among teams.

Multiple Ways to Explore Related Content

To help connect threads between the many initiatives at the Centre for Dialogue, I implemented multiple areas for cross-promotion content throughout the site, many of which were dynamically updated through a tagging system. These features included:

• Cross-promotional, dynamically updated links to content such as related posts, affiliated projects, team bios, and more throughout the pages on the site
• Categories and search filters on dynamic content where possible
• Extended bios that explored the art and practice of dialogue for team members

Clearer Centre for Dialogue User Journey

One of the main aspects we reviewed during user testing was the user journey and sitemap. What we found was that the website before redesign made it difficult for users to understand what the Centre for Dialogue was all about and that some key content was difficult to find. As a result, and in addition to consulting stakeholders, we improved the site navigation, added a left sidebar on all internal pages, and added informational descriptions in several key areas.

All in all, the website redesign resulted in clearer understanding of organizational mission and improved access to resources.