Graphic Design

SportFit Canada runs a highly successful school-based program aimed at getting kids to be active. The program’s success largely rests on the efforts of the program manager who spends a great deal of time working with schools to organize events and get schools and teachers involved.

The Process

ADGi was initially invited to complete an expert review of the existing site. Based on our findings 2010 Legacies Now was able to support the argument for a budget to complete a full-scale redesign.

The Solution - Surface the Interaction

Before the redesign, the site was an excellent example of a collection of good ideas that were cobbled together without much in the way of planning or user research. All of the important information and interactions on the site were buried two or three links deep. While the application logic behind it was solid, and the idea of finding sports for kids based on current fitness levels and interests was excellent, the site was hard to navigate and hard to use.

Our approach to this redesign was based on two key concepts:

1. Simplicity - the site needed to appeal as much to students who will be the users interacting most with the site as to teachers who need to feel like the site will be easy for their students to use
2. Bring the information and the key interactions as close to the surface as possible

Based on these two key concepts we developed this wireframe for the redesigned home page. It uses the concept that SportFit is as “easy as 1-2-3” and then describes the site and it’s main interaction in three key areas of the home page.

Using the wireframe as a foundation, our designer created this design concept.

The redesigned site was launched in Fall of 2008.

The need for redesign stemmed from a number of business drivers for dys architecture: they had recently added several partners to the management of the firm; they had moved to new larger offices; and they had undertaken a new marketing initiative to re-brand and re-focus the firm. To properly reflect all of these changes, they decided to redesign their site.

ADGi was invited to work on this project as a part of a virtual studio with emplus communications (who completed the visual design work) and Engine Digital (who completed the code development and CMS work).

The Process

After initial client meetings and a presentation by the market research firm, we determined that:

• The vast majority (+95%) of site visitors arrive at the site by entering the URL
• The purpose for coming to the site is, in this order, to review the DYS portfolio, to learn more about the firm, to find out about the partners
• The story behind the various projects, the firm, and the people is as important as the ‘facts’

In discussing the priorities and what we knew of user needs we knew we had to focus on the portfolio. We also knew we needed a means to highlight the story behind the facts, without getting in the way of the facts and the traditional way that architects discuss their projects. The solution needed to be bold and creative yet not flashy. It needed to stay within the character of the firm (high integrity, confident, casual, yet somewhat conservative) but also speak to the new branding.

The Solution

To bring all of these pieces together the solution provides a flat, matrix-driven structure rather than the typical hierarchical structure. After typing in the URL users are taken immediately to a page highlighting a specific project. From this page, the user can then navigate through other projects in similar categories or can go to a project index page, that shows thumbnails of all of the projects and also allows the user to filter projects by criteria such as Location and Completion. The site went live late in 2007, and is still in use today.