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Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center: Website Design, Website Development, Website Hosting
3 Min ReadWhat we did for them: Website Design & Development, Website Hosting, Ongoing Website Maintenance
Industry: Nonprofit
Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center is a 501c3 non-profit organization serving abused and neglected children and their families from Dorchester County and parts of Berkeley and Charleston Counties. Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center works in collaboration with law enforcement, DSS, Guardian Ad Litems, Mental Health and other agencies involved in caring for abused and neglected children in our community.
While designing the website, we focused on bringing a friendly, playful element without detracting from the serious nature of what Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center is dedicated to. We accomplished a balance by creating hand-drawn elements, like icons and titles, while maintaining a clean and professional aesthetic.
Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center’s main two focuses for the website were reporting abuse and donating. Consequently, we made sure there was a call-to-action (CTA) for both options in the header of the site, so no matter what page a visitor is on, they will always be able to see the option to donate or report abuse.
Ease of use and a clean, clear design are always one of the primary focuses when we design websites for our clients. We designed their new website to be user-friendly from both the front end (for website visitors) and the back end (for when staff at Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center needs to make a quick edit).
Every single page received individual attention because each page has unique content. Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center is a large organization and they provide several different services to the community. They have over 40 pages—they have a lot of services, offer all kinds of education & training, and there are a lot of different sections to highlight for donations and support. They organize many events. They have a lot of information about who they are and what they do.
Their website was huge and we made it very easy for people to find what they were looking for. So, we condensed the top-level navigation and made each parent page which features a nice preview of all the sections under the page. Every page was addressed individually and designed based on what the page needed.
A great example is the contact form. With their contact form, we made sure to consider what features would be easiest for both the user and the client. DCAC has 10 different departments information from a contact form would go to. We set up conditional logic which ensures forms will go straight to the person in the relevant department, making it a simpler experience for everyone involved.
A more user-centric feature of the site is the section on the home page directed towards “Caregivers,” “Professionals,” or “Supporters.” It’s a different way to find a page you may need. So specifically, the Caregivers section goes to the therapy page, the Professionals section directs to educational resources, and the Supporters section routes to the donate option. Designing it this way is more engaging and considers the user’s perspective.
It was interesting and fun to work on building out so many different pages with different content in a way unique to every page but still cohesive and consistent with the website as a whole.
The Dorchester Children’s Advocacy Center is a very large organization with many decision-makers. Our graphic designer, Sarah, worked directly with 2 staff members, Faith and Melissa, to make sure all information and ideas were passed on properly and applied correctly on the website. We were ultimately able to present it to the board and had complete approval upon the first review.
