Project Overview
The Youth Disability Advocacy Service (YDAS) had a vision to create a hub for young people with disabilities which would enable them to access up-to-date information about their rights and to provide overall support. YDAS partnered with Reading Room to deliver the Youth Disability Rights Hub (YDRH) website; which contains clear and intuitive navigation, content, a social media presence, and most importantly, a way for their users to contact the agency. Reading Room provided a range of services from web design through to development, and made sure to focus primarily on improving user experience.
Project Commissioner
Youth Disability Advocacy Service
Project Creator
Team
Project Director - Shaun Rowland
Project Manager - Cameron Wirth
Designer - Mark Payne
User Experience Developers - David Pickstone and George Spyropoulos
Technical Developer - Matthew Dalby
Project Brief
YDAS is a not-for-profit organisation that actively seeks to engage with the community and its user base. The YDRH website was set up to provide the platform from which YDAS could achieve this in an effective, relevant channel.
The key to the website's success is in its content, however, this information was originally spread across various channels, many of which were 'locked' behind non-friendly user interfaces. Once accessed, it was evident that this information was written more so for legal professional than young people. The idea was to bring forward relevant information for young people in a contemporary, user friendly way.
Project Innovation/Need
Reading Room sought to change the way in which YDAS communicated with the disabled youth of Victoria. We harnessed the power of web to provide a highly accessible, responsive website that empowered its users. This website was the first of its kind in Australia for the particular target market. It gave users what they were really after - a website that they could access from any device and know that it would function as desired.
What the website also achieved was the 'success stories' component. This is a section which is dedicated to demonstrating to young, disabled people there are positive outcomes that can come out of their hardship. This along with beautifully-written content provided them with the knowledge of knowing that help is only a 'click' away.
Design Challenge
The largest challenge by far in this project was the audience. All coming from a diverse spectrum of disability & accessibility needs, we needed to ensure that the design was very fit for purpose. This meant that the design had to do three things, be youthful and vibrant for it's younger audience, ensure it was authoritative in it's tone and to work on any device.
As accessibility was key to its overall success, the design had to lean on this but not feel like it was being governed by it. Large clear entry pathways and strong vibrant colours are some of the more evident design components utilised to bring this website to life. The design was then put through it's paces with a 3rd party accessibility review body and was highly rated ready for roll out.
User Experience
To enhance the overall user experience, clear pathways were created. This provided topic-specific information that young people would understand and enabled them to consistently recognise were they were in the site by colour & jump to a section with ease.
A significant portion of the audience used mobile devices - both tablets and smartphones. As this was always perceived to be a known, coming up with a responsive design was a mandatory requirement.
Digital Experience - Website
This award celebrates innovation and creativity in design of a unique user experience in the combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content for websites. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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