A member experience with peak performance.

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Canadian Ski Instructors’ alliance

Excellence in ski education.

The Canadian Ski Instructors’ Alliance (CSIA) has been Canada’s leader in ski education for 85+ years. As the country’s only internationally recognized certification organization, CSIA is dedicated to creating passionate lifelong skiers.

CSIA required a revitalized, engaging website that showcases the benefits of membership while improving the user experience to create clear paths for ski instructor certification. We designed and developed a new digital platform that uplifts their brand and connects seamlessly to their existing membership system.

Reach

  • 21,000+ members across Canada

Services

  • Digital Strategy
  • Information Architecture
  • UX & UI Design
  • Copywriting
  • WordPress Development
  • Maintenance & Support

Year

  • 2026

Technology

  • WordPress
  • Pantheon
  • Connexence Integration
  • WPML Language Translation
  • SendGrid

Digital Strategy

Building a truly elevated experience.

The CSIA website was in need of a thorough audit to identify pain points and opportunities to improve the member experience. We started by focusing on better organization of the navigation, prioritizing memberships and instructor courses. The intuitive new architecture directs new members through a streamlined registration process, and guides current members along a clear pathway for certification, job opportunities and membership perks.

We endeavoured to create cohesion across the experience by consolidating multiple platforms and a large amount of content that was previously only available as pdfs. Our shared goal was to create a seamless experience that brings visual consistency and streamlines updates for the CSIA team.

UX/UI Design

Design that inspires the instructors of tomorrow.

CSIA aimed to have a brand aesthetic that was professional, credible and educational. Equally important, they wanted their brand to reflect the passion, excitement and enthusiasm of being a ski instructor. Building upon their existing colours and logo, we modernized the CSIA brand by creating a digital style guide with updated typography, iconography and styling that brings CSIA’s bright and personable imagery to the forefront. This new approach is most evident on the new homepage and a visually-driven About page that highlights CSIA values and 85+ years passion for skiing. 

The previous website lacked interactive elements and modern UX polish. The new site features interactive content sections, subtle movement and hover states to direct users to important calls-to-action and keep them engaged. Overall the new website design creates a sense of belonging, making users feel informed, inspired and motivated.

Digital Style Guide – COlours

Digital Style Guide – Typography

Digital Style Guide – Application

Digital Style Guide – Application

Content Optimization

Gaining an edge with clear content.

CSIA’s previous website was light on content, particularly messaging that communicated their benefits and value. This was all fine and well when they were the only organization in Canada offering ski instruction courses. But when new competition entered the landscape, CSIA needed to step up their content to better convey why their membership and courses were a cut above. 

With a tone that is equal parts professional, engaging and inclusive, we helped craft new copy for key pages that puts member benefits front and centre. The new content also highlights CSIA decades of experience, passion for the sport, and their international recognition. With clear and direct calls-to-action, the new content directs users to register for courses, explore jobs and take advantage of member perks. Content across the site is also available in French via WPML and manual language translation.

Course descriptions were previously all contained within pdfs. This created a frustrating user experience and made it cumbersome for CSIA to make routine updates. The new course pages bring important course content directly into the site with easy to digest descriptions and jump links to downloadable guides, FAQs and next steps.

Development

Smooth integration from top to bottom.

Prior to development, we mapped out a technical roadmap to ensure the WordPress website and its integration with Connexence could properly support member-facing features such as role-based content access, and a member dashboard. We also planned a migration for their existing blog posts which we all contained on a separate platform

The new WordPress site serves as their main public-facing platform, hosting core content such as blog posts, news, courses, and events. The site is also connected with the Connexence platform to display the existing modules that allow for member specific functionality. We developed a custom WordPress plugin to load and display existing VUE components as WordPress blocks. These files allow CSIA to easily make any necessary changes to the modules that rely on the Connexence API.

We also incorporated an additional school archive system into the development of the new website. This included developing a new custom post type for snow schools, a custom

taxonomy for regions, regional archive page templates and a filterable school archive page. This featured the addition of the Google Maps API to plot schools.

What’s Next

Apres-launch and beyond.

CSIA’s new website is clear and easy to navigate for both new and potential members. They now have a singular, centralized platform that supports their immediate needs, elevates their status in the ski industry, and provides a strong foundation for future phases of their digital strategy.