Coalition of Peaks - Development

Our Client

The Coalition of Peaks is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They are a representative body comprising of community-controlled peak organisations. The Coalition of Peaks is currently working with the government to develop a new national agreement on Closing the Gap. This is aimed to minimise the disparity between the life situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians.

Their Challenge

The challenge for The Coalition of Peaks was that they did not have a website of their own. Some of their efforts were piggybacking off of one of their members’ sites, NACCHO, but this was not enough. The organisation was growing, and they needed a unique web presence to engage with the community and showcase their work.

The Coalition of Peaks were looking to create a website that more effectively reaches their audience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. They required a balance between a professional look which was also engaging and inclusive for the audience, without compromising on design.

Our Approach

Client Relations

We worked closely with the stakeholders at the Coalition of Peaks to ensure that we understood their vision and requirements for the new website. This involved seeking approval from high-level stakeholders. We took the time to understand their business goals and target audience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their members.

Requirement gathering document
We worked with stakeholders to understand their style preferences for the site design and create a website that was tailored to their exact needs
Ongoing design changes were perfected until the client requirements and ideal look and feel were achieved
Throughout the project, we openly communicated with stakeholders with unlimited email and phone support
Regular project management updates

Our Solution

Branding

We created a website for Coalition of Peaks which integrated visual elements to represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, to effectively draw in the target audience’s attention. We worked closely with Aboriginal designers to represent a strong brand for the Coalition of Peaks. An illustrative style was used to present all design elements in an engaging manner through the website.

Incorporated brand elements like cultural patterns and textures
Stylised text-based forms, pamphlets and materials provided by the client
Implemented brand colours

UI Design

The website design had to be engaging for its audience, with colour, patterns and engaging imagery. We used many images on the website, which were provided by an Aboriginal artist, in combination with strategically arranged text boxes to present the content to the audience in an engaging manner. We had to find a balance between corporate and cultural in the design, which we achieved by working closely with the Coalition of Peaks’ stakeholders.

Audience engagement was improved by structuring the content on the website into a well-thought-out design
Using rounded corners and circles to mimic the branding design elements
Designed using interesting shapes and engaging backgrounds
Many unique brand design elements were used throughout the website to elevate the look and branding of the organisation
A number of illustrations were used to present detailed content in a captivating style
Incorporated brand elements like cultural patterns and textures
Images were well-balanced with content
Balanced creative and interactive visual elements with essential content

UX Design

Once the website design was approved, we moved onto the HTML mock-up of the website. We created the browser experience of the website and continued to make improvements according to the requirements and preferences of stakeholders. We integrated many documents into the website to provide the audience with relevant information to the target audience.

Resource section with document upload capability
Potential for the members portal to be integrated in the future
Interactive mouse over elements to engage the audience
Expanding circle design was used to highlight buttons on the navigation panel
User-friendly and highly visual navigation
Optimisation across devices including mobile devices
A pulsing feature was used in the design displaying the national members of The Coalition of Peaks

Integrations

To give the Coalition of Peaks’ website the interactive and creative feel, they needed engaging elements to reach out to their audience. We developed their website according to their design styles and added website features to elevate the content.

Interactive timeline feature
Integrated interactive members map
Integrated an audio feature for snippets of the website spoken in different native Aboriginal languages
PDF viewer integration
Cultural warning pop up

Project Handover

Once the Coalition of Peaks website went live, we gave full control to the organisation’s stakeholders. We provided relevant project stakeholders with training for website management. This was to help them efficiently manage and add new content to the website regularly.

Website hosting deployment
24/7 website monitoring
Two months of ongoing support
Backend training session
Training documentation

Ongoing Maintenance and Support

Throughout the ongoing support period, we provided ongoing monitoring, maintenance and bug fixing for the new Coalition of Peaks website:

Basic SEO
Submitting the website to all search engine webmasters
On-page and off-page optimisation
Redirecting URLs from the old websites to the new website
Domain management
24/7 monitoring
Google Cloud hosting

Working Towards a National Agreement on Closing the Gap