United Way Halifax

The Analysis

Large organizations with many chapters and particularly non-profits often have to wrestle with templated solutions for their websites. It’s an easy answer for a massive organization to roll something out that each chapter can tap into but doesn’t always fulfil their particular needs and typically have little personality. Here was our opportunity to break the mould and elevate their experience. 

When we were approached by United Way Halifax, we made it our mission to create something ownable for them. We wanted to create an imaginative online experience that felt inspired, polished, supportive and drove visitors to get involved. 

The United Way boasts an incredibly strong brand that is known worldwide. Every strong brand should come with a thorough guide and a toolkit of assets to utilize when producing any marketing materials that include their mark. The United Way is no different. Although these guides were established some time ago, there were many hidden gems that had yet to be fully utilized online. This gave us an amazing sandbox to work within.

I love working with Dose! It’s inspiring to team up with service providers who share our high standards, and I can’t say enough about how much I value the ease, confidence and user-experience focus they brought to our project.

– Laura Whitman, United Way Halifax

The Cure

We designed a component driven system of templates that could be easily modified by adding or removing these sections while always presenting a consistent experience throughout the site. Weaving in various brand shapes, curves and media, we were able to inject the branding into the interface. These pieces set the stage for how we laid out content in a responsive design that looks great on any screen size.

An easy donating mechanism was crucial to the success of this website. MARSWorks has created a donating platform widely used by different chapters of the United Way, so it was a no-brainer to tap them in to handle donations.

The team at DOSE went above and beyond for us – and we felt that every step of the way. Not only did they deliver on a beautiful design, they delivered us a product that was easy to manage so that it would be sustainable for our small team going forward. Everyone was so easygoing, kind, positive, and always quick to respond.

– Amanda MacDonald, United Way Halifax

The client was so thrilled with the revamp, they brought us back to help design their Annual Report for 2019. They wanted a way to create and maintain Annual Reports on the website and have them be more accessible and less cumbersome to develop. This was an opportunity to expand the new site design and break some of the rules. We wanted to ensure that the annual report felt like a different experience; once you opened a report, you’d be immersed in it. We stripped away the main site navigation from the top of the annual report templates and implemented UI that would make it easier to navigate longer scrolling pages and from chapter to chapter. This opened up the interface to weave in larger photos, graphics, tag in our core set of components and make this longer form content more digestible for the user.

It’s been our pleasure to collaborate with such a great team that unselfishly serves our community. Now they have a platform that uniquely fits their needs and will continue to grow with them into the future.

The value that we received from DOSE on our new website was absolutely outstanding. They know how to design something that looks great, build something that is user-friendly, meet deadlines, and communicate effectively throughout the whole process. I would recommend working with them in a heartbeat!

– Amanda MacDonald, United Way Halifax