3Bridges Community is an innovative not-for-profit organisation located across South Eastern Sydney. It needed a new website to enable their diverse community members to access services, without getting lost in the details.
3Bridges also wanted to show how they connect with the community and enrich people’s lives as young families, teenagers and as older people. Their offer is diverse which makes it a challenge to communicate simply so we focused on the outcomes that people want which is to live well, be supported and have opportunities such as volunteering and training.
3Bridges needed a website to be many things:
- A highly visual design, embodying the new brand and communicating graphically.
- Friendly and informative, guiding the visitor on a path of engagement with the right mix of 3Bridges' many services.
- Easy to use on all devices and accessible to WCAG 2.0 Level AA
- Simple for non-technical staff to publish content, including videos and publications.
- Integrated with internal systems and multiple third-party systems for booking events, courses and email communications.
- A portal of information and connection for staff and volunteers, to support them in complex situations such during COVID-19.
Having varying degrees of success with redesigning their website in the immediate past, 3Bridges invited Art of Multimedia to assist. AOM recommended starting with a Discovery and UX Design process and involving in-depth consultation with the key internal stakeholders, responsible for the mix of services 3BC supports the community through. Rosemary Bishop is the CEO of 3Bridges and she said
“It’s a challenge to build an engaging and smart web site that clearly guides people to the best service to keep them and their family safe and connected with the community. The initial consultation with AOM about how to organise information and identify the best pathway for the customer to access the service was invaluable in the design of our website."
The subsequent website design delivered high-fidelity prototypes, to help busy staff see how the website will work, before investing in development, thus enabling further refinements.
This Agile approach was particularly important, as the organisation was concurrently transforming its service delivery and changing internal IT systems.
The development stage brought the approved vision to life, resulting in an attractive website, which has been very well received by the community as well as 3Bridges stakeholders.
The website launched before COVID-19 created significant disruption to some and increased demands for other 3Bridges services. Having deployed a modern Drupal CMS, AOM was able to scope, design and add new functionality quickly. The Staff Portal equipped the organisation to connect and support its now remote care workers and volunteers.
“ The great thing about AOM is that they are a true partner and are now working with us to build our marketing and communication capacity further with integrated community newsletters and a great staff portal.”
AOM provides ongoing website maintenance as well as digital communication advice and tools such as email templates and platform, to support 3Bridges in transforming their communication.
