Healthcare
Vital digital resource contributes to a safer and healthier Waterloo Region
The Waterloo Region Integrated Drugs Strategy (WRIDS) aims to prevent, reduce and eliminate problematic substance use and its consequences in Waterloo Region. WRIDS is a collaborative made up of 130 individuals from organizations, agencies and the general community, such as educational institutions, police and crime prevention services, and medical, addiction, youth, housing and emergency services.
Aligning with the strategy’s four pillars of prevention, harm reduction, recovery and rehabilitation, and enforcement and justice, the WRIDS’ steering committee guides the strategy’s recommendations and implementations in the area.
Challenge
As a drug information resource, it was important to the WRIDS that the new website be ready and live in time for the planned marijuana legalization in Canada. Staff needed to be trained on the new content management system (CMS) to ensure content could be easily managed, updated and edited.
The WRIDS’ previous website had a dated design, featured limited interactive elements, and was not responsive to different screen sizes. The new site needed to have a modern presentation, intuitive navigation, be accessible to all audiences and responsive to multiple devices.
With no dedicated technical staff monitoring the WRIDS’ online presence and with a slow or unresponsive third party handling questions or issues with the WRIDS’ previous site, the refreshed site needed to be hosted, maintained and supported with dedicated and trained staff.
Solution
With a hard deadline, we delivered the brand new, refreshed waterlooregiondrugstrategy.ca in time for the country-wide legalization of marijuana. We completed training sessions with the WRIDS’ staff on our browser based i:Create CMS, which puts the power in staff’s hands to manage content and easily update the site.
Creating a clean, friendly and approachable digital design, we ensured a consistent look and feel throughout the entire site that reflected the WRIDS’ values and brand. Our sitemap architects worked with the WRIDS’ staff to create a new and intuitive website structure that was easy to navigate and find content. The i:Create CMS is AODA accessible and meets all legislated WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards to ensure all audiences can access information, and the site is responsive across all devices and screen sizes.
The new waterlooregiondrugstrategy.ca is hosted on secure Canadian servers, with our expert support staff at the ready if the WRIDS staff have questions.