The Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG) is a student-based social justice resource centre at Simon Fraser University. I worked at SFPIRG for 7 years. It’s where I learned communications for non-profits, figured out I loved graphic design, and planted the seeds for my current career. While I was there, I oversaw the website and all the communication design for the organization. So when I heard they needed a new website, I already understood many of the problems and had ideas for solutions before we met.
Easy to Find Information
One of the major things SFPIRG does is offer a lot of resources – both information-based and tactical (space, training, funding etc.) to SFU students as well as to the broader community. The first thing we needed to do was organize the information on the site so that it wasn’t overwhelming. Our goal was for students to be able to find resources easily. The majority of SFU students aren’t politically active, but they are curious about social justice issues. This is the user we are designing for. I designed the site around three major offerings: information, resources to help take action, and support resources.
Playful, Energetic Design
Some of the visuals on the site are hand-drawn. This was taken directly from SFPIRG’s logo. The colours are bright and bold. While SFPIRG offers a lot of resources and serious information, the overall vibe of the site is energetic and even playful.
Custom WordPress Development
This was a complicated customized build on WordPress. I created a number of custom-post types and taxonomies to better organize all the information. These posts are arranged onto custom landing pages. Because of the thought we put into organizing the site, it’s easy for the staff to create and update content who have a fine-tuned level of control on where to display all the content.
Accessibility
Accessibility is a key value for SFPIRG. We focused on accessibility on every stage of the project from the base code to making sure alt tags were all written properly. The events calendar is customized to take registration information and allows participants to request accessibility accommodation for every event.