Funnelling knowledge to further ethical care.
COTO
Accessible resources for occupational therapy.
The College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario is the regulatory organization responsible for registering and governing the occupational therapists (OTs) of Ontario. By ensuring that its registrants are professionals who are qualified, competent, and ethical, the College safeguards the public’s interest.
We built a responsive and accessible new site for COTO with the goal of guiding their diverse audiences to find relevant resources. We also ensured the site is scalable and easy to manage for COTO’s staff.
Reach
- 7,000+ OTs and the general public across Ontario
Services
- Information Architecture
- UX & UI Design
- Copywriting
- Website Development
- Search OptimizationWeb Hosting
- Maintenance & Support
Year
- 2025
Tech Stack
- WordPress
- Jetpack Search
- WPForms
- Constant Contact Integration
- Readymag Integration
Digital Strategy
Streamlined navigation for clear paths.
One of the main objectives for the new COTO site was to improve the user experience for a variety of audiences. These audiences included the public, registered occupational therapists, as well as applicants, OT students, and employers. Some users within these groups have limitations and need extra assistance while exploring the site. We started by rethinking the navigation to create an intuitive paths for each distinct audience.
COTO’s previous site had a lot of pages and confusing menus, making it difficult for users to find the information they needed. We addressed this with a new site architecture that features streamlined menus complete with helpful icons, descriptors, and timely reminders for quick scanning.
Previously, COTO’s resources were spread across various areas of the site with no logical organization or filtering for their different user groups. We created a one-stop resource hub that combines clear categories, tags, and filters with improved search functionality to guide users to finding relevant resources.
User Experience
Ensuring user independence.
In our quest to create a better user experience for COTO’s range of users, we researched similar associations and organizations to gain meaningful insights. Many regulator sites have similar issues such as an overwhelming amount of menu options and an overload of text-heavy information. We mapped out wireframes and user journeys for COTO’s audiences to ensure clarity and ease of use.
Opening up the layouts with more space and variety, while breaking the content up into bite-size blocks helps make this a more readable, accessible and web-friendly experience
The previous site’s analytics showed us that the search results was a top visited page, telling us that people were coming to the site looking for something specific. So, we created a prominent search feature on the homepage. We also highlighted the latest occupational therapy news and updates, filterable by audience type for people to learn about what’s going on in the OT world.
We helped COTO become more approachable with a more modern design including updated colour palettes, graphics, and imagery.
Design
Welcoming diverse audiences in.
COTO’s new website design is modern, welcoming, and accessible. We wanted to ensure the new site reflected their positioning as an established leader without losing any of their approachability. To achieve this, we presented information simply and straightforward as many members of the public that are visiting the COTO website have disabilities.
Based on COTO’s existing brand guide, we evolved their digital identity to use modern UI elements. We added bold colours and gradients for warmth as well as text highlights to emphasize importance. Throughout their imagery, we also showcased more diversity to better reflect the range of people coming to access the website.
We also leveraged a wide variety of content blocks with to drive engagement while adhering to best practices to ensure accessibility compliance.
Content
A friendly helping hand for all.
As a regulator in Ontario, COTO aims to find the balance between being a trusted leader in the OT field while being a helpful and approachable resource for the public. Their previous site had a lot of pages, some with limited or duplicate content, making it hard for users to find the information they’re looking for.
To help streamline the content for easy digestibility, we optimized and consolidated their content with visually-driven layouts and concise blocks. In the overall structure, we created helpful overview pages that audiences can use as a jump-off point with clear and organized information.
In order to meet accessibility requirements, the content needs to be clear and simple at a moderate reading level. COTO has a writing style guide as well as content checklists for AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) and DEI. We made sure to follow all three of these when consolidating current content and building new pages.
We streamlined and optimized COTO’s text-heavy pages into easy digestible content coupled with visually-driven layouts and concise blocks.
Development
Filtered, searched, delivered.
COTO offers a wide breadth of resources that cater to a variety of users so we needed to build a central resource hub to house them all. We added custom post types and tags as well as a site search and filters to accommodate various formats such as webinars, podcasts, checklists, and e-learning modules. Users can now find the information they need quickly and easily. We used Post Formats to create uniquely styled templates for each content type. We also built in a simple toggle from English to French on certain pages, such as some standards and resources, for users to easily switch between languages.
When it came to content migration, we took a hand-on approach by consolidating, reorganizing and cleaning up over 250 pages of content. Ahead of the migration, we also implemented a redirect strategy to retain SEO rankings and ensured a seamless transition from the previous site.
Final Thoughts
A central source for those in need.
As a useful source of information for OTs, employers, and the public, COTO offers plenty of content and resources for their audiences. These users will return again and again, whether they’re a patient seeking care, a newly graduated occupational therapist looking to register for the first time or a seasoned OT or employer.
As regulations evolve and new educational resources become available, COTO will continue to add more content to inform OTs and the public. Their centralized resource hub will become more important than ever. And thanks to their new WordPress platform, it will be much easier for COTO to add and edit content as they evolve their digital presence.
