Mapping the Way to Indigenous Empowerment and Land Claims

Goals

The main objective of the project was to rebuild the Drupal 7 website in Drupal 10 and redesign it to better reflect Mapping the Way’s mission of raising awareness of the agreements while telling the stories of the 11 First Nations. 

Requirements

The client needed to move their website away from Drupal 7, as support for this version is ending soon, and also wanted to take advantage of all the newer Drupal 10 capabilities. What originally was envisioned as a migration ended up being a fresh rebuild, which allowed for a new and improved site architecture and a rebrand which resonated with their audience and mission. 

The previous website lacked breadcrumbs and a clear path to keep users within the website. Without clear suggestions of related content to dive further into, users would quickly leave the website. 

Outcomes

The main project deliverables included: 

• A new bilingual site built in Drupal 10
• Requirements gathering to clarify the design objectives
• Accessible design that follows WCAG AA
• A front-end that leverages Tailwind and Bootstrap
• A redesign that visually conveys the First Nations’ stories, focusing on people and their vital relationship with the land. 
• A new stylescape to define new overall visual aesthetic of the Mapping the Way brand
• A new sitemap that restructured the website to keep visitors on it and reorganized the content in a way that's user friendly
• Moving to Pantheon cloud hosting to allow for better developer workflow 

A thorough content audit revealed the need to restructure the site so we facilitated better content organization and navigation by leveraging Drupal's taxonomy capabilities. Through meticulous categorization, we interconnected stories, communities, and agreement using tags, fostering an immersive exploration experience that kept users engaged. We brought all the Agreements together in a dedicated space, providing visitors with historical context, while also linking related content for users to discover more.

One limitation we recognize is that we did not have a First Nations designer on our team. This meant we had to take extra care in listening, learning, and understanding our client’s needs so that we could fulfill their mandate of actively communicating the First Nations’ stories. 
The design pays tribute to the 11 First Nations’ history and legacy while at the same time embracing their rich culture and diversity. We opted for an editorial approach, aiming to refine the scaling and arrangement of items, while also integrating stronger storytelling to seamlessly guide users to relevant content. The design, reminiscent of newspapers, showcases large serif font titles to channel the users attention through a well-defined visual hierarchy. The loose, map-inspired layout and logo creates a sense of exploration and movement, as do striking images that highlight the landscape and the people in varying sizes and placements.  

Given the context of the historical injustice the Canadian government and people have caused to our First Nations’ populations, it is more important than ever to honour their history and  integral contributions to shaping the Canadian identity. Mapping the Way raises awareness of the 11 Self-Government Agreements, celebrating the First Nations’ cultures and identities. The Yukon’s progress in self-governing positions it as a trailblazer, offering inspiration to the other First Nations aspiring to achieve autonomy and self-determination.