Long and Proud History in Toronto

Founded in 1988, Casey House was the nation’s first stand-alone treatment facility for people with HIV/Aids and the first free-standing hospice in Ontario. During this time, the average life expectancy for people living with AIDS was nine months, and many of them were dying alone and cut off from the support of family and friends due to stigma and misplaced fear. The founders of Casey House believed that everyone deserves to be cared for with dignity and compassion.

Fast forward to today, and Casey House is now Ontario’s HIV/AIDS hospital. And they are still one of the few places where people with HIV/AIDS can seek care without judgment.

Rebuilding a New Digital Space from the Foundation Up

The Casey House team approached us to give their website a refresh that would showcase the change and evolution of the hospital over the last decade. Similar to their building’s recent renovation that successfully blended heritage with contemporary design, we needed to step back to understand the history of Casey House, its philosophy of care, and what they wanted to accomplish digitally in order to create the blueprint for the new website. We started with a gameplan to find the “why”, then moved on to identify user personas and mapped them to their required website functions. A content audit and historical Google Analytics data review was also conducted to determine how to position the site. This all resulted in the new Information Architecture that would guide our build.

One Site, Two Purposes

Casey House is a hospital, but it’s also a charitable foundation. One key challenge was to make sure we were facilitating the awareness and information for both entities clearly, since they wanted only one digital property. We ensured that the Mission, Values, Voice and Brand were at the forefront and reworked the navigation to make it easy for their wide range of visitors to easily find the information they need.

Welcoming Clients at Their (Digital) Front Door

The old website didn’t clearly communicate how clients could visit the hospital. One initiative of the new design was to make their “digital” front door as welcoming as their physical one on Isabella Street. We helped to make it easy to understand how an Inpatient or Day Health Program client can easily prepare for their visit.

Inspiring Action and Support

We learned that a key part of Casey House’s success is in the generous sponsors, volunteers, and artists who help bring health and hope to people living with HIV/AIDS in Toronto. Our goal was to provide a canvas for enabling community engagement, involvement, and participation. From stories and education to driving donations and providing volunteer opportunities, we designed the site to effectively support these initiatives.

A Look and Feel That Matches the Casey House Philosophy

Warm and welcoming. Passionate and judgment-free. This is how you feel when you visit Casey House and we wanted to continue these perspectives in the site’s design. That’s why we decided to keep it simple, focusing everything around the Casey House “red”, adding new secondary and tertiary colors and providing a layout that lets the content speak for itself to communicate the principles of Casey House.

Ease of Publishing & Back-end Management

Casey House is a large site with a great deal of content—and it intends to become bigger, as the goal is to continue being a key resource for people living with HIV/AIDS in Ontario. We made sure the build was scalable with a back-end that is easy for anyone to use. From a flexible homepage mosaic design that’s easy to change to the flexibility in handling ongoing marketing and communication activities, the site is designed to be the digital extension of the organization.

Bringing Health and Hope to People Living with HIV/AIDS

Working with Casey House showed us what it truly means to provide care with dignity and compassion. Throughout every step of the project, we could see that Casey House was more than just a place to work. Everyone showed a passion for supporting people with complex medical and psychosocial needs. It is a true joy to work with the Casey House team and we’re proud to be partners in supporting their digital growth.

Celebrating Canadian Content

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