Background
Web development + Headless CMS
cardus.ca
Completed April 2018
Cardus is a non-partisan, faith-based think tank and non-profit dedicated to promoting a flourishing society through independent research, robust public dialogue, and thought-provoking commentary.
If that’s not a mouthful, their web development requirements certainly were. Cardus has over 6,000 articles, research reports, and opinion pieces, spread across half a dozen websites, spanning nearly two decades of publications. It was going to take a unique approach to keep it all manageable.
The challenge
Cardus has been one of our longest, recurring clients. We’ve been working with them since 2010 and we’re intimately familiar with all of their online properties.
When they came to us in mid-2017 looking for a plan to relaunch their flagship website and tie together the content from all of their smaller sites under one roof, we were more than happy to pitch them our idea.
What we did
Research & Strategize
We pitched an idea that collected the Cardus content in a single repository and sharing across multiple sites via an API.
Cardus didn’t want to commit enormous amounts of money (and energy) to an enterprise level content management solution so our development goals used open-source tools instead.
By the end of the year, we’d gotten the green-light and were off to the races executing our plan.
Collaborative Design
We worked with Cardus’ in-house designers to on the redesign, providing assistance with UX and mobile responsive layouts.
Custom Headless CMS
We collected content spread out across multiple websites and developed a single-source content repository. The content repository was built from scratch and customized to their exact needs.
We then developed an API that could share the content across each of their web properties through a set of customizable rules.
Each individual website would continue to operate on its own, but with a limited sub-set of content that was typically only important for that website, and not for the organization as a whole.
Content Strategy
Cardus had two primary kinds of content that required different methods of management
Institutional content included articles, research papers, news, and events needed to be collected in a single repository from which it could be tagged to appear on any of their properties.
Site-specific supporting and marketing content needed to remain under the management of each individual site.
This division between content repository and individual site content allowed their in-house content editors to maintain a clear separation of responsibility.
Timelines
The project had a rigorous timeline with frequent milestones and deliverables over a 6 month period. We hit every single one.
Content was migrated from all 6 websites to a single repository and re-launched their entire online presence all at once with zero.
Simplicate is quietly building an unheard‑of reputation in the industry.
Web development that is both reliable and affordable. The team at Simplicate is particularly gifted at turning their clients’ rough-sketch visions into glossy, combat-ready web products. Responsive, personable, visionary: three reasons this company comes highly recommended.
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