Lotteries Yukon came to OXD to redesign their government website. They are the Ministry responsible for Yukon Lottery Commission, developing legislative and regulatory initiatives in relation to inter-jurisdictional lotteries. Lottery profits get distributed to hundreds of volunteer and community-based organizations for projects and activities throughout the Yukon.
So when a serious hack of the Lotteries Yukon website led to them taking it completely offline, it highlighted the importance of better security. To ensure the community still had access to the arts, sports, and recreation programs they offered, Lotteries Yukon approached OXD to redesign their website on a more secure platform that was easy to use with easy to find content.
The site is an important resource for the people and communities who use the funding programs administered through Lotteries Yukon. The new website needed to better communicate the benefits of giving back to Yukon communities. Administrators from sport governing bodies, communities, and not for profits are able to access, understand, and apply for program funding. The Yukon Lottery Commission mandates community-based program funding assistance in three areas:
- Travel assistance for Yukon people with travel expenses to compete and/or take part in adjudicated events within and outside of Yukon.
- Community funding to support local programs and projects that sustain and contribute to the growth of arts, sport, and recreation.
- Funding for projects intended to sustain and contribute to the growth of arts, sport, and recreation in Yukon.
We needed to meet several needs for Lotteries Yukon when redesigning their website, including:
Building a secure, responsive, and fast solution on a best-in-class CMS
The new site needed to have increased security features, and be manageable for employees with a variety of technical skill levels. The site also needed to be accessible, mobile-friendly, and have quickly-loading pages. Internet speeds are slower in the Yukon than in other areas in Canada, so quickly-loading pages was an important piece of the new page design. Building the new site on a modern content management system (CMS) that is able to withstand and prevent critical internet vulnerabilities, as well as serve people of all abilities, helped improve the digital experience on both the back-and front-end.
Increasing usability and accessibility
A reorganization of the information architecture and clearer program naming improved content navigation. The new site now also meets the Government of Yukon standards, including translation to French language.
Increasing operational efficiencies for Lotteries Yukon employees through extensive training and flexible content modules
We provided robust training for staff on the implementation of the CMS. Our User Experience team developed over ten hours of training videos to teach employees how to add and manage content on their own.
Refreshing branding and visuals
To support the new user experience, we improved the digital visuals based on Lotteries Yukon’s existing brand. Refreshing the colour palette, adding accordion-style features, and rounding hard corners produced a modern and friendly feel.
Our redesign of the Lotteries Yukon government website increased security, modernized the look and feel, and improved the experience for both staff and users. By doing competitive and comparative research, and building the new site on Drupal—a best-in-class open source digital platform—we helped the client reach their goal of being "easy to use, easy to find, easy to understand.”
If you're thinking about a website redesign, our free Website Planning Guide can help you get started with your planning.