Modern Redesign Honoring Indigenous Identity and Improving Usability

Evolving Web redesigned the Vancouver Community College (VCC) website, transforming an outdated platform into a modern, accessible, and user-friendly digital presence, creating a space that engages students and honouring the College’s Indigenous identity. The project included translating the College’s new brand to the digital context, working directly with the branding agency to ensure that it was accessible, to balance the use of colours and graphical elements, and to convey the brand while focusing users’ attention on the content and calls to action. A third-party VCC partner will develop and launch the new website using this enhanced design and content transformation.

Vancouver Community College is a leading educational institution renowned for its commitment to learning and community engagement. The college offers a diverse range of academic programs and courses to students while providing essential services and support. However, with an outdated website that posed challenges for user navigation and accessibility, VCC recognized the need for a comprehensive website redesign to better serve its community.

The overall objective of the project was to design a modern, inclusive, and user-centric platform that uses the institution's new brand and surfaces the most important resources more quickly. We wanted to create a digital space that engages prospective students and honours the School’s strong Indigenous identity. The redesign would also offer current students clear pathways to the multitude of services and information about studying at VCC, reducing the need for microsites or deep navigation links. We had a clear goal of reducing drop-off rates on program category landing pages, and converting more prospective students to take the next step towards studying at VCC.

VCC’s existing website needed a significant overhaul. Prospective and current students often had to speak to an advisor or attend an info session to find essential information. One of the critical challenges was that content about programs, admission requirements, and admission costs was either limited or buried in the navigation, leaving students with numerous questions. 

An overhaul of the content organization was needed to make content findable by new users and to prioritize the mobile experience. This required making difficult decisions about the messaging and clear next steps to highlight on key pages. 

The project’s art direction faced challenges such as font selection, inclusion of special characters used in First Nations languages, and balancing traditional elements with a contemporary touch. 

The new design is modern and showcases the diverse and welcoming VCC community, emphasizing Indigenous initiatives and engaging Indigenous students and elders in providing valuable insights. Overall, our design approach was not just about aesthetics. It aimed to create a visually engaging, accessible, and culturally respectful digital space.

The new streamlined navigation structure unifies the information architecture instead of siloing content according to the College’s organizational structure. This will allow prospective students to move between sections more easily and explore the College’s program offerings while being exposed to content about what makes the learning experience at VCC different.

Our work included:

• Highlighting Indigenous culture and community through visual elements and content
• Streamlining program and course information for different types of students to reduce drop-off rates and guide students to the next step in researching their program of choice or applying to the School
• Using testimonials and event content more strategically to increase student engagement
• Integration of Continuing Studies content into the main information architecture of the website to give it more prominence
• Focusing on content quality, and reducing the quantity of content, to create a better balance between text and visuals and creating a welcoming and informative digital space
• Translating the new brand identity, developed by third-party partner PS&Co, for the College’s digital presence in a way that would be extensible to other digital platforms
• Ensuring that the new brand is compatible with accessible design best practices
• Designing for mobile to provide a better experience for students, reducing the number of CTAs and making the menu easier to interact with on mobile 
• Placing Longhouse-inspired visuals in key locations across the website, achieving a delicate balance that pays homage to Indigenous cultures
• Selective use of the brand’s light green colour to weave the brand into images and other components in a way that selectively grabs users’ attention
• Leveraging Google Web fonts that have special character sets available, and a more legible display face to enhance readability and scalability, to meet accessibility best practices
• Developing a subset of pages in advance of the CMS implementation to align with VCC’s timeline for launching the new brand and updating the website’s homepage

The Vancouver Community College website redesign exemplifies how a rebrand and content revamp can go hand-in-hand to create a more inclusive and welcoming user experience. VCC is set up for success in creating a platform that reflects its commitment to learning and community engagement with streamlined navigation, WCAG-compliant interface, and emphasis on showcasing the VCC community. The new website will surely set the tone for the organization’s digital presence and improve both the admissions process and the experience of current VCC students.