Cancer Grand Challenges

The Cancer Grand Challenges website redesign project addressed three key areas: brand positioning, content structure and technical functionality.

From a brand perspective, the organisation faced a significant challenge. Their existing visual identity, which had remained unchanged for years, no longer accurately reflected the pioneering, innovative, and cutting-edge nature of their work in cancer research.

In terms of content structure, the organisation recognised the need for a substantial improvement in their information architecture to more effectively showcase the real-world impact of the research they fund.

On the technical front, the website grappled with significant limitations that hindered both user experience and internal operations. Limited mobile responsiveness was a major issue, as was the existing content management system's inefficient authoring features.

Initially, Cancer Grand Challenges proposed a website refresh. However, our experience indicated that this approach would fall short of creating the pioneering and impactful platform they envisioned. We recommended a complete rebuild to avoid the constraints of legacy systems and enable a comprehensive reimagining of their digital presence.

Opting for a full rebuild allowed us to take a bold, ambitious approach to the new website. While respecting Cancer Grand Challenges' existing brand guidelines, we evolved the design to create a site that embodies their core values and makes a lasting impression.

The new design exudes confidence and inspiration, challenging users to think differently. We introduced dynamic, organically shaped colourful elements across the site, serving as powerful brand devices. These visuals connect to Cancer Grand Challenges’ logo (a dynamic Möbius loop) and pay homage to human cells - the battleground of cancer research. This approach resulted in a website that feels cutting-edge and scientific, intrinsically linked to the organisation's purpose.

We took the core elements of Cancer Grand Challenges’ brand - gradient and colour scheme, typography, illustrative style - and pushed them in a bold new direction that worked harder to communicate who they are and what they’re about. Motion plays a crucial role in the new website, elevating the design and delivering an experience that feels alive and contemporary, with animation featuring heavily throughout the site.

We also designed a new information architecture for Cancer Grand Challenges' website to capture the dynamic nature of the research process.

This approach effectively communicates that the challenges are being actively worked on, with new progress being made regularly.

We restructured the site's content based on user intent, creating distinct sections for different types of challenges, and making the cyclical nature of the challenge process clearer:

1. New Challenges: A landing page designed for users looking to apply for funding. This page guides potential applicants through the process and provides essential information.
2. Active Challenges: Once a team has been funded against a challenge, it becomes an ‘active challenge’. Organised chronologically, these pages offer live updates on the progress of ongoing challenges, linking to news articles and publications about the teams’ research.
3. Concluded Challenges: Once the funding cycle for the challenge is complete, it becomes a 'concluded challenge’. These pages are an archive of previous challenges, providing a comprehensive record of past achievements.

One significant change was the removal of the separate 'Teams' section from the top-level navigation. Led by the brand’s strategic direction moving towards being more challenge-led and recognising that challenges and teams are intrinsically linked, we integrated team content directly into the challenge pages. This approach reflects the interconnected nature of the research process and provides a more cohesive user experience.

A new 'Impact' section was added to address a key shortcoming of the old site – the lack of a clear way to demonstrate the real-world effects of Cancer Grand Challenges' work. This section showcases successful breakthroughs and key statistics, effectively illustrating the tangible results of their research funding.