Therapeutic Services
Designing For Compliance
2024
Creating Resources For Survivors Of Domestic Abuse
The Women’s Resource Center of Rhode Island had reached out to me about acquiring my services for a new website build. One where they could safely provide information to at-risk women or women currently undergoing abusive situations at home.
Gaining Additional Perspective.
The Women’s Resource Center of Rhode Island acts as a safe haven for women who are trying to escape an abusive situation. This was a new population for me to design for, they had undergone experiences that are both very sensitive and tend to leave the end user feeling very on edge. Not being able to work directly with the population due to HIPPA laws, I was reliant on feedback from the WRC team and volunteers who wanted to provide to the build.
During this build, designing for ADA & WCAG 2.0 compliance of the up-most certainty for both the client and the end user. Using the national hotline for domestic abuse as a starting point, I was able to identify assets that could be translated and manipulated for the desired end user of the WRC. One such tool that I had not had the chance to consider before this build was quick-exit buttons, that would work directly with the browser to change the website’s identity to limit any possible exposure for the user.
Typically with a website build, I would include additional software that would allow for basic tracking and form-fill confirmation. However now working with HIPAA compliance, I now had to pivot some of my traditional software to self-wipe ever week or so, for end-user safety there was also an additional firewall requirement for this site.
The Solutions Presented
Because this site was intended as a tool for the WRCRI team, I chose to build the website on a user-friendly CMS, WordPress with a backing of Elementor. This would allow the team to log into the site, and make changes to events, job listings, and basic content that would allow them to more directly serve their community.
The website itself was more minimal than I typically like to design for, but with compliancy in mind I wanted to make the content the fore-front of the website as much as possible. Images we’re also minimized, with the user being in a state of stress, image interpretation could vary greatly which can be considered a trigger risk.
Additional Notes / Takeaways
This build met the ADA and WCAG compliancy that was initially required, although the client is in control of the site so current scans might not pass with the same score. The sample size for this project was minimal, and their sphere of influence is small, however the cause of this client is one that I was happy to be able to contribute to. I hope that this style of site goes into consideration with other organizations attempting similar projects.
