TORONTO—With the goal of improving the user experience, the W Network hired Dashboard Communications to redesign its site. “The old site was static,” says Beth Young, executive producer of interactive at W Network. “The new site is a true Web 2.0 experience where we are engaged in a dialogue with the audience.”





























Darcy Reaume, art director at Dashboard, says the challenge was fitting the channel's big style – including its bright orange and aqua colour palette – within the confines of website design. “They call it the hard candy style,” he says. “Because there is a chunky look to the channel we needed to condense it for the website. With the exception of advertising, which we can’t control, we have tried to keep the new site open and airy while sticking to the brand colours.”

The biggest change from the old site is the organizational structure, says Gayle Lunn, group account director at Dashboard. “The primary challenge with the redesign was the W Network has a huge amount of content,” she says. “We had to organize it and prioritize it for users. We did that by looking at content from the viewers perspective. We bucketed it into lifestyle categories such as shopping and food and health and made intuitive paths to it.”

Also helping users get to the information they want is the new ‘My W’ function. “As soon as you get to the site you’re asked to organize information the way you want to see it. For example, ranking home and garden above shopping," adds Reaume. “Essentially what it comes down to is the ability to access content.” Contact: Dashboard.ca, Wnetwork.com