Crafting an accessible website for a leading children’s charity

The Challenge

The biggest frustration of the existing website was that by trying to cater to such a wide, diverse audience, YST had found itself struggling to effectively communicate its message and impact to any one user type. To address this, they had undertaken a significant rebrand prior to working with us, so we needed to take their new identity and ensure it worked incredibly on the web.

By applying their new brand to the key user journeys we identified throughout the site, each distinct user type can now quickly identify the value proposition of YST.

Modern, bold & accessible design

The site needed a creative flair to reflect YST’s brand and values, while also retaining a clean, intuitive UX.

With this in mind, we created a series of bright, vibrant graphic elements which work well across all channels. By fully understanding YST’s audience, we were able to create compelling and useful designs that truly focus on the user.

Good design and accessible design are very much one and the same. We worked to meet AA accessibility standards, producing a site that is both visually impactful, configurable, and easy to navigate.

An award-winning Umbraco solution

The site is built on Umbraco, a flexible open-source content management system, with our expertise as Umbraco Platinum Partners making it the perfect choice. Umbraco is both easy to use and extremely flexible, and places no constraints on design, so it’s future-proof for the charity.

The site is fully optimised for all devices, with lightning-fast loading times and a well-considered layout for each and every element.

Previously, search functionality was poor, so we implemented a significantly improved advanced site search that surfaces relevant content, allowing users to find resources quickly, and reducing the manual effort previously required by staff.

We incorporated a series of calls to action on the homepage to link to key areas of the site, and implemented a megamenu style navigation to enable users to browse more intuitively. The ‘Support Us’ button also features prominently within the header to include wider information about partnerships and fundraising, as well as encouraging increasing charitable donations.

A key requirement across the web estate was to implement Single Sign-On with Salesforce, allowing users to use a single set of credentials to log into each YST website. This offers a more personalised, flexible UX, while also reducing the burden on content managers by ensuring a single source of truth is maintained for data like programmes, events, and schools.

YST hosts a number of events as well as acting as delivery partners to promote events for third-party organisations. Users can now see all event listings pulled through Salesforce, filterable by title, description, location, and date, and these can be registered for within Salesforce too.

Continuous Evolution

The new YST website has dramatically enhanced their brand identity, and we’re so pleased with the results alongside the Well Schools community and branding. Not only is the new site highly accessible and ultra-quick, but it also truly encapsulates the energy and spirit of YST. It has even gone on to win a prestigious Northern Digital Award for the 'Best Website' category as well as 'B2C Website of the Year' in the UK Digital Growth Awards.

We will continue to collaborate with YST for any ongoing support via our Client Success team, ensuring exceptional levels of support and the constant continuous evolution of their solutions from go-live and beyond.