Edge designed website wins Credit Union Standard of Excellence WebAward
We are excited to announce that Edge won a Standard of Excellence WebAward for the 2022 Unitus Community Credit Union website redesign project.
Several specific accomplishments in the website redesign project were called out by the judges, including nods for excellent content and copywriting as well as high scores for design and ease of use.
Throughout the project, enhancing member experience, providing accessibility for all members and demonstrating authenticity with visuals were paramount. To do this, we focused acutely on the navigation experience, applied our years of ADA compliance expertise and side stepped the use of stock imagery.?
“The clean, modern look, simple navigation, and enhanced content offerings provide a first-class experience for website visitors,” said Scott Bell, VP and Chief Experience Officer at Unitus Community Credit Union.??
Some key priorities that Edge focused on for this project were:
User Experience
Diversity Equity & Inclusion
Authenticity
When a picture is more than a picture…?
As part of Unitus’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the Edge team collaborated with Unitus to reflect the credit union’s membership, staff, and local community with custom photography on the site. This was a significant side project that dovetailed the website redesign and fed the website visuals, which included real members and staff, local businesses, and Unitus’ community partners.?
Additionally, custom graphics featuring the new website branding were a key component to pulling the look of the new modernized site together on both desktop and mobile.?
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Accessibility
As part of our longstanding partnership with an organization specializing in accessibility, the website went through a rigorous review and remediation process to ensure it met the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, level AA. And, as part of our routine work each year, Edge works alongside our partners to review and remediate the site in order to maintain this high standard of accessibility compliance. We believe it’s just good customer service and makes for an outstanding customer experience.
El Banco Amarillo
Keeping the Spanish-speaking audience front of mind as we did our work was an essential part of this website redesign. As Unitus has earned the distinction of Juntos Avanzamos (together we advance) and has become recognized as a credit union committed to serving and empowering Hispanic and immigrant consumers, their work to reach the Hispanic community in their field of membership continues to go deeper.
As a result, Unitus has become known as El Banco Amarillo, The Yellow Bank. Yellow is a key color in their branding. And at Edge, we believe it’s important to respond to the community when it responds to you - and embrace this moniker of fondness from the Hispanic community.
In addition to rolling out a version of the website in both Spanish and English, Edge has been producing marketing creative in both languages for a large variety of formats. This supports?Unitus’ increased capabilities to offer appointment scheduling in both English and Spanish for each branch, at Unitus Mortgage, and with Unitus Financial Advisors. A WebAwards judge noted, “great progress on this initiative. Clearly, DEI is represented on your site.” To learn more about our expertise in multicultural marketing, view this case study.
Enhanced Performance
The new blog layout has improved organic channel performance as users browse engaging, relevant, and helpful content. Enhanced on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has led to higher ranking within Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).?
Throwing our hat in the ring
We recognize that there is a lot of hard work being done out there by people that are too overwhelmed to throw their proverbial hat in the ring when it comes to earning formal recognition. So, we take strides to help with that as well.
With a project of this magnitude, that takes a depth of experience rolled out over many months, with a myriad of moving parts, we make the extra effort to come alongside our client-partners and encourage award submissions. Getting the work done, and done with excellence is one thing - but taking the time to gather materials, fill out paperwork and submit for awards is sometimes just too much. So, we make it easy and provide stats, assets, and support to ensure that our clients are recognized.
Satisfaction of a job well done
And so it goes that Unitus adds yet another award to their trophy case! We are grateful for our partnership since 2008 and the many projects we’ve collaborated on over the years. We eagerly anticipate what we’ll no doubt accomplish together in 2023 and beyond.
At Edge, we pour ourselves into our work - holding ourselves to the highest standards in quality, user experience, accessibility, functionality, beauty, and authentic brand representation.?
“Receiving recognition from WebAwards is edifying, but having a happy client (that won an award) and the satisfaction of a job well done is its own, best kind of reward,” said Stephanie Chadwick, CEO of Edge.
Every web project we take on is taken as seriously as it gets. That’s why we sometimes have to say no to taking on a project. We only want to do our best work. And, when our best work gets nationally recognized, our team rests well knowing we chose wisely.?