Visit the site Extending the reach of the leading voice on criminal justice worldwide.
Penal Reform International (PRI) is an international non-governmental organisation promoting fair and effective criminal justice. They work on issues such as the abolition of the death penalty, women in prisons, and alternatives to imprisonment.
PRI wanted the new website to cater for multi-language content and be fully responsive to tablet and mobile devices.
The brief
The client needed a new website to help them improve the dissemination of information to their main audiences of intergovernmental organisations, national governments and other policy makers. In particular they were looking to make their extensive library of publications more prominent and easy to use, reflecting the thematic and geographic scope of their work.
Our approach
We developed a new structure which combined key content types such as ‘Resources’, ‘News’, ‘Blogs’ and ‘Projects’ with a set of categories that included ‘Priority area’, ‘Region’ and ‘Language’. This approach enabled to to supplement the standard navigational tools withfeeds of relevant content throughout the website.
Our initial research identified that PRI’s audience tended to have a particular area of specialism, so the priority pages were seen as key destination. These pages were carefully designed to summarise the topic for new visitors and provide a stream of the latest relevant content for those that were returning. A similar approach was taken for geographic locations.
We worked closely with PRI to define a unique photographic style. We researched and contacted photographers working in this area and assisted in negotiating usage on the website. The imagery offers a vivid and emotive counterpoint to the technical policy and research content.
Highlights
The Bureau were a pleasure to work with. They understood our brief and our audiences well. We were pleased with all aspects of the project development, particularly the design which they gently and sensitively developed, and the choice of CMS which we all find easy to use.
Harriet Lowe, Information and Communications Officer
Many ‘responsive’ designs look remarkably similar to each other as they are based on a standard grid of equal column widths. We adopted a more unorthodox layout based on the ‘golden ratio’, which led to distinctive layouts across a range of devices and some innovative responsive behaviour.
Results
Site visits have increased by over 45%, page views by 25% and mobile visits by 300% year on year.
Photographs used by kind permission of the photographers:
Listing page photo by Fernando Moleres, banner photo by Scott Langley.