Our Work CABE - Canadian Association
for Business Economics
Case Study

Almost everything you hear in the news, from weather events to military maneuvers, has the potential to deeply affect a business economist’s work. The Canadian Association of Business Economists—CABE—was formed to help keep economists and other business professionals connected and informed of the wide range of issues that can affect Canadian and global economies.

The organization is a hub for six local chapters from across Canada. It also hosts local and national events, including luncheons, networking events, workshops, webinars and conferences.

Clearly, CABE’s mandate is as challenging as any professional association. But their outdated website wasn’t up to the task. They must have logistical support, like calendars, registration and documentation for events. They need to promote dialogue between members. They must offer a platform for local chapters. It should be easy to join and continue to be a member. And they need to facilitate networking, education, mentoring and job opportunities.

This looks like a job for the web development and design teams at NVISION!

With a clear understanding of their target audience, and the long list of roles the website must play, the first job was to identify and assess the pain points in the existing site. With those solved, new functionality could be confidently added to a robust platform.

• Develop a Future-Proof Information Architecture
  The old site became unwieldy for CABE and its membership because the site’s structure wasn’t built to support the demands placed on it. Taking the time at the start to determine what information must be delivered, and collected; to and from whom; and when, pays off immediately—and in the future.
• Design with the User Experience in Mind
  When your organization serves such a broad audience, offering them a wide range of information and services, it’s easy to forget the individual who lands on the site looking for one piece of information. While the CABE Homepage features a light, refreshing design, users are within one click of almost everything the site has to offer.
• Give Voice to Local Chapters
  While a national organization is valuable, the length and breadth of Canada means many local issues might never be heard in a national conversation. To keep local chapters engaged across Canada, and their membership in touch with the local community of economists, independent chapter pages were created to allow each one to promote and manage local events, and attract new membership.
• Streamline Registrations
  The critical importance of the ease of registration cannot be understated. Without it, participation in events goes down; and overall membership goes down too. Web users must be able to clearly understand what is expected of them at every step of a registration process, perform the registration on any connected device, and be assured that they have been successful in registering.
• Build in Security & Reliability
  Handling a member’s credit card and personally identifiable information is a crucial responsibility. And no organization that depends on volunteers needs to be bogged down with solving registration issues. The CABE site enlists industry-leading applications, including WooCommerce and Gravity Forms, so CABE staff can spend its time serving their members.