The who
WaterAble
A not-for-profit professional network for disabled people and their allies in the Victorian water sector.
My role
UI/UX Designer | Visual Designer
Team
Myself (UI/UX/VD)
Stakeholders (WaterAble Founder and Chair)
GWW Senior Leadership
The problem
WaterAble have recently started accepting associate members from people outside of Victoria, due to its growing reputation and unique offering (which until now has been only available in Victoria).
WaterAble felt its website didn’t reflect its recent growth and didn’t present itself as professionally as it should moving into a national landscape.
WaterAble Founder, Llewellyn Prain (and Greater Western Water board member), approached me to update the website. The initial request was to make it look and feel more professional and improve accessibility and navigation.
The solution
Already familiar with WaterAble’s brand, I knew that an updated website using existing branding wouldn’t work. I proposed a full holistic brand uplift to allow a more consistent and professional user experience through multiple touchpoints beyond the website.
Website before
The original WaterAble website was plain and lacked any distinguishable voice or personality. There were navigation issues, with main menu items only scrolling to locations on the homepage as opposed to a new page. Content page templates were basic using only icons and text.
Creating the new look-and-feel
The original designs I proposed to WaterAble contained photography in the header and homepage, however, WaterAble liked an illustrated image they were currently using on their socials and asked for this illustration look-and-feel instead of photographs.
I found the original Illustrator file from freepick.com. I personally felt the characters were all the same skin colour and didn’t really reflect any real-world diversity.
I manipulated the characters using Illustrator to create more diversity (eg more diverse skin tones, and outward-facing religions) to help evoke a sense of diversity and inclusion at WaterAble.
I created bespoke character motifs and positions to use on the homepage, in content page banners, and the other branded collateral I supplied.
Website after the uplift
Homepage on desktop and mobile:
Content pages and online forms:
The outcome
The new site (which I built using WordPress Elementor), and all other brand uplift assets were delivered in December 2022 - www.waterable.com.au.
Site navigation was improved and overall it was more accessible (with Accessibility Checker results yielding no critical issues against WCAG 2.1 AA and a compliance rating of 95% at the time of build).
As well as the website uplift, I also created and supplied the following assets:
a new logo
new EDM headers
new social media assets (profile and banner images)
new Zoom/Teams meeting backgrounds
PowerPoint slide deck
The stakeholders were thrilled with the new look and feel:
“With the new website and new branding, I really feel like we have the right collateral to match our presence now in the industry.”