NIIM Website Rebuild
NIIM
Healthcare, Modular Design, UX
Jan 2024
A project aimed at creating a modular, content-adaptive site
Redesigned NIIM’s website with scalable modules to suit content availability.
Overview
Redesigned NIIM’s website with scalable modules to suit content availability.
Challenge
Limited content resources required design flexibility.
Approach
Modular, scalable content blocks tailored to client’s resources.
Result
Flexible website structure resulting in easy updates & scalability.
"Designing for limited resources isn’t about cutting corners; it’s about creating structures that can flex, scale, and still feel complete."
The National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM) approached us with a challenge that many not-for-profits face: limited resources, inconsistent content, and a need to maintain credibility in a competitive healthcare landscape. Their website was dated, difficult to update, and lacked the flexibility to grow with their changing library of content.
Rather than simply “reskinning” the site, I took a design-thinking approach that placed NIIM’s operational reality at the centre of the solution. Workshops with their team revealed a common pain point: staff struggled to manage the site because content often arrived late, in small batches, or not at all. That meant designs built on large hero imagery and heavy narrative structures would quickly feel incomplete.
The approach was to build a modular design system that could adapt to whatever content NIIM actually had available at any given time. Each page was structured around interchangeable blocks - text, image, video, testimonials, calls to action - that could be scaled up or down depending on content availability. This gave NIIM the power to assemble new pages without needing designers or developers each time.
Accessibility was also central. Healthcare sites carry a responsibility to be clear, legible, and compliant. I implemented WCAG-compliant colour palettes, consistent typography scales, and responsive breakpoints tested across a wide range of devices. The end result is not just a flexible website, but one that maintains professionalism and trustworthiness regardless of how much or how little content NIIM publishes.
The outcome was a site that finally worked with NIIM’s reality rather than against it. Staff can publish updates with confidence, the design maintains cohesion, and visitors experience a professional, accessible healthcare platform. By focusing on modular design, the rebuild future-proofed NIIM’s online presence, giving them a tool that scales with their capacity.
Rather than simply “reskinning” the site, I took a design-thinking approach that placed NIIM’s operational reality at the centre of the solution. Workshops with their team revealed a common pain point: staff struggled to manage the site because content often arrived late, in small batches, or not at all. That meant designs built on large hero imagery and heavy narrative structures would quickly feel incomplete.
The approach was to build a modular design system that could adapt to whatever content NIIM actually had available at any given time. Each page was structured around interchangeable blocks - text, image, video, testimonials, calls to action - that could be scaled up or down depending on content availability. This gave NIIM the power to assemble new pages without needing designers or developers each time.
Accessibility was also central. Healthcare sites carry a responsibility to be clear, legible, and compliant. I implemented WCAG-compliant colour palettes, consistent typography scales, and responsive breakpoints tested across a wide range of devices. The end result is not just a flexible website, but one that maintains professionalism and trustworthiness regardless of how much or how little content NIIM publishes.
The outcome was a site that finally worked with NIIM’s reality rather than against it. Staff can publish updates with confidence, the design maintains cohesion, and visitors experience a professional, accessible healthcare platform. By focusing on modular design, the rebuild future-proofed NIIM’s online presence, giving them a tool that scales with their capacity.
