The website, which we recently implemented, presents the activities of the Migration Consortium. It is an organization of 9 organizations working on behalf of men and women migrants and refugees. With a shared goal, they spread the provision of assistance in the area of migration and also share their expertise on the subject.
Design workshop
The first stage of work on the site was to conduct a design workshop to fully understand the client's needs and goals. The main goal of the Consortium's representatives was to emphasize their authority in the area of migration activities and to encourage potential donors to cooperate. During the workshop, together with the client, we went through prioritization, identifying the users of their site and selecting the most relevant assumptions, needs and also activities that should be available to visitors of the site. The knowledge gathered at this stage was mapped out in the subsequent website structure created. One of the client's requirements was a simple and uncomplicated way to navigate the site. This meant fitting all the provided content into a small number of subpages, but in such a way that all information was easily accessible.
Designing mockups
After analyzing the workshop and reviewing the benchmarks selected by the Migration Consortium representatives, we moved on to the design stage. The first part was to create low-detail mockups. In this case, in order to make it easier for the client to imagine the end result, the mockups were already done in a slightly more visual way than standard wireframes. We used the images we had already been provided with, which were ultimately to be included on the site, and introduced preliminary color accents to help highlight the most important information. After a meeting with the Migration Consortium to discuss progress, we focused on making the highlighted improvements.
The next part of the design stage was high-detail mockups. In the meantime, we received the Consortium's visual identity from the client. This made it easier to match the nature of the website with the overall image of the organization. In this part, we focused on the visual refinement of the site, which meant matching the color scheme, standardizing the fonts used. We also focused on making the site light and dynamic, which was to highlight the open and proactive attitude of the Consortium. Elements of the logo were used for this, as well as diagonal lines when highlighting headings.
Once the final design was approved, the website development part began.
Development
After analyzing the requirements and consulting with the client, we decided to implement the site on a Wordpress environment, due to the client's experience with this system. Installation and configuration of the staging environment on our server allowed us to start working on creating custom templates for individual subpages. We used the graphic mockups we designed and transformed them into HTML/CSS/PHP code, creating unique templates for different pages and integrating the site with external services. We also assisted in the development with the Bricks Builder page builder.
The next step was to add custom fields, which allowed the client to easily manage content on the site from the admin panel. Using the MetaBox plugin, we added different types of fields, such as text, image, date selection and more, which the client can now easily update.
After setting up the site and allowing the Consortium to edit content, we proceeded to optimize the site for speed and SEO. In this process, we used a variety of Wordpress plugins that helped us increase the loading speed of the site and improve its visibility in search results.
The final step was to test the site. We checked that everything worked properly, that the site looked good on different devices and browsers, and that the site's loading speed was acceptable. Any errors or problems were fixed at this stage. After approval from the client, we installed the site on their servers under the correct domain. Migration Consortium's servers were then optimized for speed.