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About the client

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Arctic Office is hosted at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge. NERC Arctic Office is tasked with supporting UK research in the high north; providing advice to policy makers; and developing international scientific cooperation across all aspects of Arctic Research.

About the project

The Canada-Inuit Nunangat-United Kingdom (CINUK) Arctic Research Programme is a three-year project which aims to increase understanding of the environmental, social, economic, cultural and infrastructure impacts of climate change in the Canadian Arctic. The programme will focus on and address the impacts on Inuit communities and beyond.

A visual representation of the approximate locations of research being conducted by the 13 CINUK projects, including Inuvialuit settlement region, Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut.

Project goals

  • Design an engaging and accessible website to promote the research programme and encourage collaboration
  • Provide key content in four languages – English, French, Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut
  • Appeal to a wide audience including arctic researchers, policy makers, funders, the press, and academia
  • Deliver a quick and easy editing experience for the NERC Arctic Office team.

Languages

The CINUK website has content in four languages: English, French, Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut.

This is the first time we’ve worked with a non-Latin script. Inuktitut uses Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics.

As part of our work with W3C, we researched internationalisation and how to declare language in HTML. The translations were able to sit in specific sections within the main page content, allowing us to assign the correct language attributes for each section to ensure they are correctly announced by screen readers. This also makes for a straightforward editing experience in the CMS.

I love translated content. It’s such an interesting area, especially from an accessibility point of view. I’ve also been fascinated by First Nations culture for many years, so it was a great opportunity to learn a bit about how the syllabic script works.

Nicola Saunders
Nicola Saunders, Studio 24

Designing a website for the Canadian Arctic

NERC Arctic Office worked with artists in the Inuit community to design a logo for the website.

The colours and shapes we used in the website design reflect an arctic landscape.

Our design pays special attention to the connections between projects, people and publications. This ensures as teams and connections increase, the website can present it all, with ease.

The project pages are designed for remote workers to contribute images and updates.

The colour palette for the CINUK website starting with black, moving through some cool blues, a bright magenta and then shades of grey.

The Arctic is a hauntingly beautiful place. The photos and colours gave me inspiration when working on the design. It is now satisfying to see the website coming to life as the remote teams populate it with their work and images.

Isaac Lowe
Isaac Lowe, Studio 24

Reaching audiences

We designed the information architecture, presenting it as wireframe diagrams. The site structure makes it easy to navigate around the site and explore related content.

A powerful search function allows users to quickly and easily find the publications they need – searching by author and keywords.

Engaging the programme stakeholders and audiences with a range of multimedia is an important aspect of the site. We used the beautiful videos and images taken by the project teams to provide an immersive experience for website visitors.

Improving the editing experience

We modelled the CMS to meet the client’s needs, allowing them to modify the content quickly and easily across the website.

We included a password-protected area for programme participants and stakeholders. The member area includes information such as publicity, data management, and meeting dates. Admins are able to control and edit this area for example adding new sections to organise content.

Working with Studio 24 was a great experience from start to finish. The team were supportive, professional and honest throughout the process, delivering a visually appealing and well-functioning website, all within budget and by the tight deadline!

Nicola Munro, British Antarctic Survey