The Vital Beat, produced by Covenant Health, is Alberta's source for timely, credible health information and news focused on patients and residents. Their goal is to provide relevant, engaging and informative stories as part of their commitment to transform healthcare and create vibrant communities of health and healing.
The team at Covenant Health came to us with a vision to create credible online health magazine featuring the stories of patients and healthcare workers. They hoped to engage the community through more transparent and authentic content from the perspectives of real people on both sides of system. Rather than avoiding controversial or raw topics, the magazine would tell it like it is... with all the tension and beauty that come with things that really matter.
The Vital Beat features long and short form content in a journalistic style. The stories seek to capture real moments, patient perspective, and ground level concerns. It sheds light on why improving the healthcare experience really matters and celebrates the lives affected by quality healthcare.
We set out to design an online magazine that could support a wide variety of article styles and post lengths. The site had to make it easy for publishers to create both long form content and quick news updates.
The Vital Beat team was confident from the start in their ability to produce content and imagery. They had a team of writers and photographers to document stories—it was up to us at Lift to anticipate the tools they'd need to bring those stories to life online. That meant options. Lots and lots of options. We created a Wagtail CMS (Django/Python) backend with a diverse set of streamfield content blocks, allowing publishers to achieve the feeling of a custom design on every post.
Our team also worked with Covenant Health to create the best UX for users navigating the site. We helped pare down a massive list of topics into core categories. This targeted approach would drive the creation of content and allow users to easily discover stories. Related articles and further reading were designed to keep users coming back.
To bring longer, richer articles to life on desktop and tablet, we designed a myriad of content blocks. Image grids, pull quotes, video embeds and emphasis blocks break up the content and make it more scannable.
We designed the mobile reading experience to reflect the rich reading layouts from tablet and mobile. The responsive design allows for a pleasant read, while collapsing all of the elements into a simple, scrolling column. Articles are also easily shareable through social media sharing controls.
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