The most important thing for the Kwantlen Faculty Association is representing the interests of its members. Holding online elections for KFA board positions is one of the main ways they do this, but unfortunately, this had become a huge hassle for KFA staff. The reason? They were using a difficult, out-dated, third party election system. Additionally, maintaining the website and member database was frustrating and time-consuming, and KFA staff were longing for a more intuitive solution to their web design needs. We set out to program the exact voting platform the KFA needed, and clean up the front and back ends of the website design.
What We Delivered:
- Custom WordPress Website
- Website Design
- Information Architecture Development
- Database Importer Tool
- Custom Online Voting Platform
- UX Design
- WordPress Training
- Event Calendar
The Challenge
While the full website redesign was important for bringing the KFA’s web presence up to date, this project was defined by the voting platform. KFA administrators were at their wit’s end with the current voting platform. They wanted something intuitive and integrated, which wouldn’t need hours of communication with a third party in order to run. While some existing options could have met most of their needs, we wanted to completely remove their frustration. So, we set about building a better voting platform. Additionally, our graphic design team was tasked with cleaning up the website design, in order to structure the information for easier access by KFA members.
Kwantlen Faculty Association KFA website front page full preview.
The Strategy
Building the voting platform from scratch required tons of top-down planning and critical thinking. Our platform needed the versatility to accommodate elections with different user permissions, based on several voter characteristics. It also needed accuracy, confidentiality, and usability built into everything. Finding a solution with all of these variables kept our programmers burning the midnight oil, in an effort to iron out every last kink. The last thing we wanted was a faulty platform that could jeopardize an election, so a combination of attention to detail and rigorous testing was crucial. Once the voting platform was airtight, we developed the rest of the KFA website, with a refreshed information architecture and UX design, and then focused on integrating the voting platform with the WordPress back end.
Results
The KFA staff are ecstatic with how intuitive the new website is. Customizing the WordPress backend with integrated instructions on how to manage the website meant that inefficient web coordination practices are a thing of the past for KFA staff. Redesigning the front end of the website made it more accessible for members, giving them easier access to the information they needed, along with an updated events calendar. The voting platform was launched for the KFA’s April 2017 elections, to positive feedback from all parties involved. Its customizable format meant that the KFA could host any type of election they needed, without any third party assistance.
