Johnson County Crisis Center

The Johnson County Crisis Center is a non-profit organization that offers an array of services to the local community.  The Crisis Center provides immediate support to individuals in Johnson County through their Crisis Intervention, Food Bank & Emergency Assistance, and Community Intervention Programs.

In Need of Help

It was clear when we first met with the Crisis Center that their internet presence was in desperate need of a complete rebuild.  As with most things at non-profit organizations, their current website was designed and developed by a volunteer.  Although it was well intentioned, it was not meeting the needs of this high-profile organization.

The website was hard to maintain.  It required specialized software and coding knowledge to make even the simplest changes.  There was a lot of missing information including programs and services that the Crisis Center offered that were not mentioned on the website.  The graphic design needed to be revamped to accommodate a new information architecture.  It was clear that starting from scratch with a new website was the best option for the Crisis Center.

Start With Content

The first step in the redesign project was to get a handle on all of the information that was missing from their current website.  And there was a lot of it.  Once we determined what pages were missing, we had to organize them all.  With the aid of a wireframe and many, many revisions, we finally settled on an information architecture that worked.  Now all we had to do was make it appealing to look at.

Add The Design

That's where Doug, our one man graphic design department, came in.  He was able to create a fantastic design which not only highlighted the content of the website, but was also able to create a new graphic identity for the entire organization.  In fact, some of the design elements from the website have been incorporated into the design of Crisis Center handouts and brochures.

Finish With Fun

At this point, we had an intuitive organization of the content and a world-class graphic design to highlight it, but the website was still missing something - a "wow" factor.  To fill that need, we turned to a "slide rotator" system on the homepage.  This system had two main benefits.  First, it captures visitor's attention though great imagery and movement.  And second, it makes great use of the limited real estate available on the homepage by marketing many different concepts to visitors in a relatively small space.

The Final Result

We have to admit, this is one of our favorite website projects to date.  The Crisis Center was fantastic to work with (they always completed their homework on time!) and the final design and functionality really turned out great.