Fighting for Equality
Equal Rights Advocates
Equal Rights Advocates (ERA)* is on a mission to create a safer, more inclusive world for everyone. Through impact litigation, advice and counselling, and policy reform, ERA has transformed the law for hundreds of thousands of women and girls over the past forty years. The goal of the redesigned equalrights.org was to tell that story of transformation, modernize ERA’s digital presence, provide a stronger platform to communicate the work, make services accessible to those who need them, and increase donations.
* This website is currently in active development. The new design is not live yet.
Roles:
Discovery & Research
Workshop Facilitation
Content Strategy
Information Architecture
Discovery & Research
To inform the ERA website strategy, I gathered information through a robust discovery process which included a stakeholder discovery survey, content inventory, an online audience survey, 1:1 audience interviews, a market landscape analysis, and an in-person discovery workshop. Additionally, I reviewed the current website to evaluate the content, structure, and identify opportunities. Key themes emerged which set the direction of the project. Some major insights were:
ERA staff set them apart from other organizations
The “Know Your Rights” tools are highly valued
The website is cluttered and too busy
The website is difficult to navigate
Users want clear expectations of how to work with ERA and plain language
Workshop Facilitation
After completing the discovery and research activities, the project team met with the ERA team for a hands-on workshop to dig deeper into the target audiences and their needs. Together, we worked through defining the core strategy statement, persona definition, empathy mapping, user journey mapping and key website content and functionality. The workshop was incredibly productive and set a clear path for the content strategy.
Content Strategy
One of the main goals for this project was to provide structure and governance around the management of content on the ERA website. After completing discovery and workshop activities with stakeholders, I had a clear idea of the direction ERA needed to go with their content. I wrote a content strategy document that outlined the core strategy of the site, website strategic principles, style and voice, a messaging framework and a content outline for the sitemap.
ERA Core Strategy Statement
I evaluated ERA’s organizational goals and user objectives and mapped them to web strategies and specific tactics as well as a style and voice guide. The chart to the left provides writing tips, descriptions and examples. These will also serve as project “touchstones,” to help guide decision-making, content evaluation and development of new content in the future.
Information Architecture
The information architecture is the first step toward creating a plan for a sustainable and scalable website. It defines the scope and scale of the site and establishes a shared understanding of where content will be located. Key recommendations were included with the new structure that aligned with the discovery findings. Some of these recommendations included:
Elevate ERA’s issue areas to the main navigation and use plain language to simplify them to “Economic & Workplace Equality” and “Equality in Schools & Universities”.
Change “Get Legal Help” to “Legal Advice & Resources”. It is plain language, clear and avoids creating the impression that users will get help immediately.
Create a “Legal Process with ERA” page that clearly outlines what potential clients can expect when they work with ERA and help them to understand the legal process.
Create client and lawyer success stories to highlight ERA’s work and establish an emotional connection between the organization's mission and the people who are being helped.
Reframe blog content as “viewpoints” and use this section to position ERA as thought leaders in the fight for equality for women and girls.
Results
The ERA team is extremely pleased and excited to have a thorough strategy behind their new website. This website will be live in the next month.