York Equity Timeline
UX & SYSTEMS DESIGN | WEB DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT | VISUAL IDENTITY
Project Overview
Launched in 2026, the York Equity Timeline is an interactive platform developed with York University’s DEDI Strategy team. Through milestones and community contributions, it invites visitors to explore York’s equity history, share their perspectives, and envision its future.
The project began as an open idea rather than a defined product. As an independent contractor, I worked with the DEDI team to shape the platform strategy, story flow, information architecture, and opportunities for community participation. The design process led to a sustainable model of moderated submissions and structured pathways for contribution, balancing community input with accessibility, safety, and long-term management.
Role: Brand & Digital Experience Design Consultant
How do you transform a strategy into a living community experience?
From Exploration to Strategy
Working closely with the DEDI team, I explored early concepts and helped shape the website’s content strategy, user experience, and participation model.
We initially imagined an open online community with real-time interaction. Planning revealed challenges around moderation, accessibility, and content management, so we shifted to a more sustainable model of moderated submissions, dedicated event pages, and structured ways to participate.
The Evolution of the Reaction System
An early positive-to-negative rating scale became a more nuanced reaction system, recognizing that equity histories can carry multiple meanings. We designed the system and its custom icons so visitors can anonymously express different perspectives on each milestone.
Designing a System Built to Grow
Transforming decades of York’s equity history into an interactive experience meant designing beyond the interface. Working from a detailed content archive of milestones, historical context and imagery, I organized the information into a scalable WordPress system of events and categories.
This system allows visitors to easily explore York’s history while giving the DEDI team a sustainable way to manage and add new milestones that automatically appear on the live timeline. At its centre is a customized TimelineJS experience, integrated into WordPress.
Content architecture
Spreadsheet showing how milestones, dates, descriptions and categories were organized.
WordPress management
Backend system for managing and publishing events.
Reimagining York's
Visual Language
Working within York University’s established brand guidelines, I developed a distinct visual direction that combines archival photography, bold colour, and contemporary graphic elements.
With no new photography produced for the project, York’s archives became central to the visual approach. Historical images were reimagined through expressive compositions, bringing fresh energy to the imagery while maintaining a strong connection to the university’s identity.
The photography treatment was developed as a flexible visual system that the DEDI team can adapt across different platforms and materials while maintaining a cohesive visual identity.
Exploratory Concepts
Additional design explorations demonstrating how the visual identity could extend across different applications and materials. While not part of the final deliverables, these concepts highlight the flexibility and potential of the visual system.
