Overview
The Ontario College of Pharmacists (OCP) serves and protects the public interest by ensuring that the province’s pharmacists and pharmacy technicians have the required education, skills and judgment to provide safe, ethical and quality care for patients. They also regulate and accredit Ontario’s pharmacies, and hold pharmacy professionals and pharmacies accountable to relevant legislation, standards, policies and a Code of Ethics.
To help meet their new strategic goals, OCP asked C(GROUP to complete a full re-development of their website, including design, navigation, functionality and information architecture. The overall project goal was to improve the relevancy of content, overall navigation experience, and support easy and intuitive access to the many resources housed on the platform.
C(Group led a full website redesign to transform the site into an audience-first, accessible, and highly usable regulatory platform, aligned with OCP’s brand and new strategic plan.
The Challenge
OCP serves multiple audiences with very different needs — registrants, applicants, and the public — all accessing time-sensitive, high-stakes information.
User research, analytics, and stakeholder input identified four core issues:
- Ineffective search that prevented users from quickly locating policies and guidance
- Confusing layouts and unclear visual hierarchy
- Related content spread across multiple sections
- Information architecture structured around internal logic rather than user needs
The Approach
1. Audience-Structured Information Architecture
The website was reorganized around OCP’s three primary audiences:
- Registrants (pharmacists, technicians, owners, managers)
- Applicants
- Public / Patients
This shift allowed users to immediately identify their pathway and access the most relevant content without navigating regulatory complexity.
2. Task-Driven Navigation & Search
Navigation and search were treated as critical UX infrastructure rather than secondary features.
Key improvements included:
- Clear, audience-based primary navigation
- A fully expanded, all-tiers-visible dropdown navigation (mega menu) on desktop, giving users access to all key pages after a single click
- Consolidation of fragmented content into logical groupings
- Prominent, persistent access to high-priority tools such as the Public Register
- A custom search experience that allows OCP to fully control how results are displayed by keyword
- An advanced search interface with additional sorting and filtering options, as well as a built-in mechanism for users to submit feedback about search results
3. Balancing Authority and Approachability
As a regulator, OCP must project trust, credibility, and clarity — while remaining respectful and accessible to the public.
The design balances this duality through:
- Clean, modern layouts with generous whitespace
- Clear typographic hierarchy for scanning complex information
- Authentic imagery of pharmacists and technicians at work
- A restrained but confident visual language aligned with brand standards
The result is a site that feels professional and firm, yet approachable and human.
4. Accessibility & Responsiveness
Accessibility was embedded throughout the design and development process.
The website:
- Meets WCAG 2.1 (AA) accessibility standards
- Is fully responsive across desktop, tablet, and mobile
- Supports users of varying abilities, technical comfort levels, and language backgrounds
5. Operational Efficiency & Integrations
Behind the scenes, the site was built to support OCP’s internal teams:
- Seamless integration with the member portal, public register, and third-party systems
- A fully custom admin console with minimal reliance on third-party plugins
- Purpose-built custom post types that support structured, reusable content
- The ability for administrators to connect and surface related content across the site without duplicating information
- A system where content updates are made once and reflected everywhere automatically, eliminating broken links and version inconsistencies
The Outcome
The redesigned OCP website transforms a complex regulatory platform into a clear, audience-driven digital experience that supports professionals and the public alike.
Key results:
- Faster access to critical information
- Reduced user frustration and cognitive load
- Improved usability across devices
- A digital presence aligned with OCP’s values of transparency, accountability, and fairness
Key Takeaway
This project demonstrates how strong information architecture, thoughtful UX strategy, and accessible design can dramatically improve the effectiveness of content-heavy regulatory websites — without sacrificing authority or professionalism.
