WWAP
A new website for the WWAP foundation, from a thorough audit of the old site to a fast, accessible build with Astro and Svelte 5.
The question
The old website of the WWAP foundation was slow, messy on mobile and didn’t meet accessibility requirements. As a result, visitors, and search engines too, couldn’t use the site as well as they should. The goal wasn’t to patch it up, but to build a new platform that does meet the WCAG guidelines.
My role
Through bydr.studio I handle the entire process: from the audit of the old site to the design and build of the new frontend.
The audit
I started with a Lighthouse audit of the old site: Performance 62, Accessibility 85 and SEO 92.
I then tracked down the causes, such as 5 MB images, missing labels for screen readers and separate CSS files that blocked the page from loading. Across mobile, tablet and desktop I found eleven concrete issues, including inconsistent typography, buttons too small to tap comfortably and navigation missing on tablet.
It all came together in an advisory report with targeted solutions.
Design & development
Based on the audit, I chose Astro with Svelte 5. Astro delivers light, fast pages; I only use Svelte 5 for the parts that need to be interactive. The content comes from Sanity, so the foundation can edit texts themselves.
From the first line of code, I’m addressing what went wrong in the audit:
- Clean code: a CSS setup with custom properties and components following atomic design.
- No shifting pages: fonts are hosted locally and preloaded.
- Accessible: buttons large enough to tap, and labels for screen readers.
I plan the work in issues on GitHub. Right now I’m building the header and footer.
The result
The site is still in development and can be followed on GitHub. The goal: at least Performance 96, Accessibility 93 and SEO 100, and a site that meets the European rules for digital accessibility.
What I learned
Constantly patching an old site often takes more energy than tackling the problem at its core. By laying a new foundation with tools that fit the goal, I have a grip on speed and accessibility from the very first line of code. And an audit is only valuable when you translate the errors into what they cost the client: a slow site or poor mobile navigation ultimately loses you visitors.