Big Brothers Big Sisters of Calgary and Area

wee read website

Teaching mentors to help kids love reading.

Challenge

Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Calgary and Area, a provider of one-to-one mentoring relationships for children and youth, sought to re-imagine and re-brand its wee read website, a resource for training mentors on the best practices to follow when reading to young children.

Atom’s detailed audit of the wee read site found that the navigation structure made it difficult for users to wend their way through the content. The lessons contained a limited number of images supporting key concepts, while dense blocks of text made absorbing key information more tedious for mentors than necessary.

Lastly, a required log-in function potentially discouraged some would-be users from engaging with the site, learning from the instructional content, and (most importantly) applying the wee read principles for reading to children in a way that excites and lays the foundation for their future literacy.

Result

As a stylistic approach, the Atom team agreed with the project leaders at BBBS that the revamped wee read website should above all be fun, engaging, easy to learn from – and so reflect the program’s core principles.

The team began with a colour palette based on BBBS’ well-established brand but expanded it to add some zest to dozens of new hand-drawn-style illustrations that Atom created for wee read. A new typeface was also chosen that fits the project’s accessible style.

For the website’s user interface, Atom implemented a navigation sidebar with icons that link to its several main sections, making the experience friendlier for mentors and the lessons easier to move between. Page layouts were re-designed to separate text into smaller, more absorbable bites, and these are complemented by plentiful, fun images serving as signposts throughout the bodies of text.

As part of its project handoff, Atom provided the clients at BBBS a training session on how to make changes and updates to the content, so they can easily edit as needed over time.

Website

A navigation sidebar with icons made the website user experience friendlier for mentors and its contents easier to step through. Large blocks of text were reduced to smaller, more readily absorbable bites of information.

Illustrations

Plentiful images done in a hand-drawn style that use an expanded colour palette were created by Atom to reflect wee read’s playful approach to learning. These serve to complement the text and provide visual signposts throughout the site’s pages.