Transforming the Experience of Aging
The Kendal Corporation
Kendal
The Kendal Corporation
Kendal is a leading organization of communities, programs, and services that advocate for and empower senior adults to live their lives to the fullest. Through their network of senior living communities, they provided top-in-class experiences to their residents and families.
Kendal came to WDG looking to consolidate their digital brand presence across 14 affiliate locations nationwide. Previously, each location managed their own web presence and governance, creating a disparate and often confusing user experience between properties.
Branding
Consistency + Flexibility
Kendal had a unique opportunity and need to both provide their affiliate locations with structure to fit into the larger brand narrative but also brand cohesion and consistency across each property. WDG provided branding, user experience, and technical consistency while providing a CMS that allowed for content flexibility – the best of both worlds.
- Flexible Gutenberg WordPress CMS
- Digital rebrand
- Change management & consensus building
- Branded templates across multi-sites
- Vertical marketing documentation and training
- Intuitive and extensible navigation system
- Thoughtful information architecture and user flow
Content Strategy
Creating a seamless experience.
Providing a seamless user experience across multiple sites became a top priority of the WDG IA and UX team. We worked closely with Kendal to ensure the content architecture was a system that all 14 affiliates could use – one that provided a clear overview of the benefits of Kendal to users, was easy to maintain across each site, and that could be effectively deployed across each site.
Information Architecture
Unique Stories,
One Vision
Crucial to this effort was allowing each site to connect to the overall vision while also having the opportunity to tell their own story. To that end, WDG recommended a single global navigation system for major landing pages, but allowing for a more flexible system once users were taken into specific affiliate sites.
WDG also supported Kendal’s internal and vertical marketing efforts by hosting robust training programs to provide hands-on user training for the new Gutenberg CMS. During these sessions, we also emphasized the importance of brand consistency and showcased ways this new unified system would allow for growth and opportunity for each affiliate.
Design
Storytelling through flexible content.
WDG also provided flexible content blocks within a best-in-class Gutenberg WordPress build. These blocks allowed Kendal to tell their story effectively with an approved set of storytelling tools that each affiliate had access to. Gutenberg was a natural choice as a CMS for Kendal as it provides this unique opportunity to create both cohesion and flexibility.
Results
Bringing it all together.
The end result is a set of 15 websites – the corporate flagship and 14 affiliate sites – that capture the overall vision and brand for Kendal, while also allowing each affiliate to emphasize what is important for their discrete audiences.
Work At WDG