Teesri Duniya Theatre Empowering Artistic Expression Through Accessible Web Design Teesri Duniya Theatre is an intercultural theatre company dedicated to producing politically relevant plays that propel positive change. About Established in 1981 by Rana Bose and Rahul Varma, Teesri Duniya Theatre is one of the few culturally all-encompassing companies in Montreal, producing plays about diverse communities, cultures, and identities. Their productions foster critical thinking and cross-cultural dialogue with the aim of propelling positive change. Since its inception, Teesri Duniya has produced over 75 plays and dance dramas in English and other languages including French, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bangla, and Tamil. The Mandate Teesri approached us for a rebrand, as well as a new website that would better support selling tickets online. Their previous website was hosted on Squarespace and had become increasingly cumbersome to update and maintain. Additionally, its design was not user-friendly to people with visual impairments, colour blindness, or dyslexia, among others. Our task was to design and develop a websitethat centred accessibility and facilitated growth, scalability, and easy maintenance. We also needed to create a branding toolkit for Teesri that better reflects their mission and mandate. The Challenge With this mandate, there were a few things we needed to achieve: inclusive design and functionality, and better infrastructure for managing their extensive content catalogue and facilitating consistency when adding new content to the websites. The Approach Teesri serves a diverse and wide-ranging audience of minority groups and marginalized people. It was essential that both Teesri’s branding and website reflect DEI principles, ensuring inclusivity for individuals with disabilities. To that end, we followed UX best practices and guidelines for the visually impaired, as well as conducted colour blind testing for all of the new branding and web design. As Teesri relies on volunteers, which tends toward a higher turnover, we focused on building tools for adding new events and content that will maintain consistency and integrity of the website’s design and messaging. In doing so, we made sure the process for updating the website was user-friendly and did not require a lot of technical knowledge. Branding to reflect Teesri Duniya’s artistic vision Our first step was Teesri’s rebrand. Their existing branding did not live up to the professionalism and important cultural impact of their work. Additionally, the web design did not account for colour blindness and other visual impairments. To rectify this, we conducted workshops with stakeholders to better understand Teesri’s needs and objectives for this rebrand. We chose a colour palette that would be visible to those with colour blindness, as well as used fonts that are easy to read. Before we finalized the new branding, we conducted testing to ensure that our design choices aligned with UX best practices. A website centred on inclusivity and usability An inclusive user experience was the main objective of this project. We took Teesri from a website that was difficult to navigate and nearly impossible to find specific content to a site with an intuitive and seamless UI that not only provided clear pathways to specific content, but made sure that all of their content was organized in a way that was scalable for new content. Information architecture Our priority with this build was to ensure that the website’s content aligned with its purpose. As Teesri’s target audience includes theatre goers, artists and actors, and donors, there needed to be clear pathways for each group to find the information they seek. Facilitating ticket sales Above all, Teesri’s website needed to support ticket sales. We implemented an event management plugin that connected to Stripe, their payment processor to provide a streamlined purchasing process. With these tools, Teesri is better able to track and manage sales for each of their events. A more user-friendly content catalogue Teesri has visual and video content going back through the 90s. It was important that the history and legacy of their work be preserved digitally. We built an organizational system that made all of it much easier to find and engage with on their website, without overcrowding or cluttering the page. Framework for scalability As Teesri continues to host new productions, it was necessary to provide them with the tools to add new content to their website that would remain consistent with the website’s design and user experience. We provided them with a custom WordPress theme that makes it possible to maintain a standardized format for all content types. Serving a bilingual community In recent years, the Quebec government has been placing increasing pressure on Quebec-based businesses and organizations to provide French content on all their digital spaces. While it was not part of our mandate, we were able to go above and beyond to provide Teesri Duniya with French translation of all of their webcopy. Our website didn’t serve us entirely, and we struggled with outreach, marketing and communication. Third Wunder changed that. It gave us a look representing us and enhanced our outreach and communication. Thirdwunder staff is delightful, highly competent and trustworthy, and their professionalism is second to none. They take time to explain the logic behind the design and every action and go the extra mile to achieve it. We highly recommend the Third Wunder. Putting the spotlight on Teesri Duniya Theatre With a new website and fresh and professional rebrand, Teesri Duniya Theatre has a new digital home better equipped to serve their diverse audience. The website now better reflects the history of the theatre and their vision for their future. Their deep catalogue of visual and video content is not easy to navigate and engage with, and the inclusive, user-friendly design of the website ensures that there are no barriers preventing access. Most importantly, it is now easier than ever to buy tickets online for all of Teesri’s events.
Our website didn’t serve us entirely, and we struggled with outreach, marketing and communication. Third Wunder changed that. It gave us a look representing us and enhanced our outreach and communication. Thirdwunder staff is delightful, highly competent and trustworthy, and their professionalism is second to none. They take time to explain the logic behind the design and every action and go the extra mile to achieve it. We highly recommend the Third Wunder.