From basic access to healthcare, to reproductive mental health, to Indigenous women’s healthcare, and much more — BC Women’s Health Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that women have equitable access to the highest quality healthcare when, where, and how they need it. 

One of their recent initiatives has been their Unmasking Gender Inequity Report, which uncovered the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on women's health. In it, they explored the specific issues facing women due to the COVID-19 pandemic such as increased caretaking responsibilities, gender-based violence, job loss and more. 

Beyond the physical report, BC Women’s Health Foundation was also looking to create a bold and interactive microsite to allow visitors to engage with the content in a compelling way. According to Gord Brown, senior designer and creative lead of this digital project, this was done with the intention to transform the Unmasking Gender Inequity Report from simply a report to a full-scale movement. As he explained to Little Black Book, “2020 was a time of movements, we wanted to start a movement around women’s health.

For this site, BC Women’s Health turned to POWERSHiFTER, a strategic digital agency and Webflow Enterprise partner who helps leading organizations tell compelling stories through digital mediums. In turn, POWERSHiFTER chose Webflow to build this project given all of its capabilities to build, manage, and launch the site. 

Why Webflow was the best choice

As POWERSHiFTER embarked on this project, it was important for them — and for their client —  that the microsite was: 

• Completely custom: Given that the goal was maximum impact, it was important to BC Women’s Health Foundation that the microsite be completely custom to their needs. This would allow them to highlight images and different report statistics in a way that engaged the viewer and also allow people to read the full report without opening a PDF. 
• Easily scalable: Post-launch, BC Women’s Health Foundation wanted to be able to continue to add on other initiatives and educational content. This meant that the microsite could not be stagnant — it needed to be able to adapt and handle changes easily and efficiently. 
• Quickly created and implemented: In order to address the current health issues and state of the world brought on by the pandemic, the contents of the report were time-sensitive and it was crucial that the microsite be created in the shortest amount of time possible. 

With this in mind, it was a no-brainer for POWERSHiFTER that the site be built in Webflow. Not only did Webflow meet all the criteria, it excelled in helping the POWERSHiFTER team build something that was not just a site — but an impactful experience. 

As Priscilla Ho, UX Design lead at POWERSHiFTER tells it: "We chose Webflow for this site because we felt that it was the best platform to empower our team to create a custom microsite that was easily scalable in a short amount of time. We looked at other options and found that it would speed up the time from design to launching the site. As soon as we introduced our client to Webflow, our team was able to unlock stakeholder buy-in since it was a low barrier to entry for them to update and maintain content."

Behind the design 

For the microsite’s design, the POWERSHiFTER team wanted to keep the stories of the women at the forefront, and have the design complement — not distract — from the powerful messages being conveyed. “[For the site] we chose to use repeatable carousel containers to showcase the breadth and depth of the COVID-19 pandemic's negative impact on women’s health and wellness,” said Priscilla.

In addition, the team found that by designing two to three modular components that matched different content styles and messaging, they were able to empower the BC Women's Health Foundation team to be able to quickly showcase data and statistics on the microsite. By ensuring that the design was flexible, the BC Women’s Health Foundation team was enabled to change, edit, and finalize their narrative in any way that they chose, and be able to go back and make tweaks. 

Given that the site had a tight deadline, the POWERSHiFTER team also found that Webflow’s flexibility allowed them to easily make last minute changes as they built:

 “In the past, when we needed to make substantial last minute improvements or changes to an about-to-be-released website, there was a lot of hesitation and concern around impact to quality,” said Cary Newfeldt, VP of Technology at POWERSHiFTER. “Webflow’s system of a visual designer and editor made it possible for not only our developer to make these changes, but make them quickly and with confidence.”

An impactful and meaningful result 

Since the launch of the microsite, the BC Women’s Health Foundation team has seen an incredible impact on their campaign. In the first 20 days, they saw nearly 3,500 visitors to the site and hundreds of people sharing the site on their social media feeds. 

The impact of the site and report was widely felt across Canada and was broadcasted on major networks such as CTV, Global, and CBC. In addition, the site itself won recognition in both the website and mobile excellence categories from Awwwards — an organization that aims to award and “recognize the talent and effort of the best web designers, developers and agencies in the world.” 

For POWERSHiFTER and the BC Women's Health Foundation, the ability to tell women’s stories in a thoughtful way to thousands of people was the real success of this project. 

According to POWERSHiFTER’s case study on this project, this microsite has not only positioned “BC Women’s Health Foundation as a thought leader and change-maker,” it has given hope that “as more people read the report and become inspired to create change when it comes to gender inequity in women’s health, there will truly be a future that best serves everyone.” 

About POWERSHiFTER & BC Women’s Health Foundation

About POWERSHiFTER

If you have any questions about low-code/no-code or how POWERSHiFTER could help you with your next digital project, get in touch! They’re a team of product design and development experts who are passionate about unlocking the greatest value possible for all of your digital touchpoints. 

About BC Women’s Health Foundation‍

BC Women’s Health Foundation is BC’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the full spectrum of women’s health. They ensure women have equitable access to the highest quality healthcare when, where, and how they need it. Learn more about their initiatives.