Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi.
When creating a digital experience for the most revered cultural learning facility in the world, we went well beyond the pixels to help them tell their story, their way. Empathy research and close collaboration with the Wananga team gave us a deep understanding of the people, their values and their needs. We then created a design system to provide strong foundations for an optimised user experience for their broad audience.
Commissioned by:
User experience design
Empathy research
Web design
Art direction
Content strategy
We went right back to the beginning to bring the story to life, interactively. The story involved illustration, imagery and text. To bring it all to life, we integrated an animation engine in the CMS. This ensured the story could continue to be added to as they evolve.
People of all ages and stages of the learning journey study at the Wananga so we needed to develop an experience to cater for everyone. We focused on accessibility and inclusivity in our design solution. We enabled users to navigate anywhere on the site in no more than three clicks or taps from opening. Another consideration was a using English and Te Reo. We came up with an appropriate solution for headings and enabled a version in Te Reo. Workshops with the TWWOA team helped us create a simple course structure with customised icons and simplified text to show students the critical information quickly, empowering them to make informed decisions easily. This took a big workload away from the information desk team who were constantly fielding simple questions that the website could easily help answer.
Results
Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi now have a web experience that they’re incredibly proud of. The marketing manager made the comment: “I’ve poured five years of my heart and soul into telling our story, You’ve not only given us the solution to do that, but you’ve created an experience that brings people in with open arms. Thank you”.