Allegheny County
Website Redesign & Branding
1st Place Winner - CCAP Excellence in Websites Award 1st-3rd Class Counties Category (2016)
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PROJECT OVERVIEW
Launched: November 2015
Industry: Government
Recognizing the limitations of the current website, Allegheny County instituted a complete redesign. Its main goals? To better serve residents and site visitors while also marketing the region.
As such, specific project goals included: having a responsive website; streamlined content written in plain language (versus “government speak”); a visual layout; and the ability for visitors to easily save content (via a personalized dashboard) or share it (via social media).
In addition, the County also implemented a new logo and tagline.
The old website. Beauty, ain't she? Clearly too much going on. Difficult to navigate. And not responsive or mobile-friendly. It was clearly time for a do-over!
PROJECT BREAKDOWN
Initial Stages
While a vendor was eventually brought on board - due to the massive scale and limited internal resources - the project began as an internal one. Joining forces across departments, we had the proper talent and expertise in place to define what we wanted. Still, we faced two major challenges.
One, the County uses a content management system (CMS) called Ektron. (Now owned by EpiServer.) We planned on upgrading to the latest version which featured Bootstrap as an integrated responsive framework. Yet we had to figure out how to meld the functionality of Ektron with a responsive website. This led to some interesting tinkering!
Two, we needed to nail down the design. Our standard was “award-winning” so we looked at other award-winning, government websites. What had they done successfully? Was the site sleek and modern? Was it content heavy or more visual? Did it truly work on mobile? Was it user-friendly? (Because what’s an award-winning design if it’s horrible to use?)
The team did a lot research, discussion, and testing. In the end, we had a solid sense of what we wanted. At that point, a vendor was brought in to do the heavy lifting.
Our team developed several mock-ups during this phase so we could (a) glean a better idea of what we wanted, and (b) have a design to play with in Ektron. Several of the items shown here were executed in the final design. For example, the organization of the main navigation bar; the Quick Find (which ultimately became the How Do I? ) ; and the featuring of news and events on the homepage. Mock-up by Meredith Joos, Graphic Designer for the Department of Human Services.
Development Stage
Based on our criteria, the vendor proposed two finalized design possibilities. We made our selection, then the vendor launched into development. Meanwhile, the Allegheny team entered into the tedious process of meeting with departments and working on streamlining their content.
While the majority of development work lay in the vendor’s hands, the Allegheny team continued to be heavily involved in the project. We attended meetings, kept appraised of the vendor’s progress, and jumped in to assist with any issues. This included things like responsive challenges, Bootstrap and CSS issues, and development expertise.
Desktop screenshot of the completed homepage. The carousel is used to market specific events, services, and facts about our reviving region. Notice the larger yellow How Do I? bar below that offers quick links to our most viewed pages. (We can manually change these at any time.) At the bottom of the page is a Featured Item widget, allowing us to highlight a variety of things from pool passes to important announcements.
New Branding
In addition to the website, the County also tasked the vendor with creating a new logo and tagline. (At the time, we didn't have a tagline and had been using the state seal as our logo.) After completing some focus groups, the tagline of “Always Inspiring” - a phrase that could be completed any number of ways for marketing purposes - was chosen from three possibilities.
The logo, however, was a bit more challenging. Specifically, the color palette. We were having difficulty communicating what we wanted, so in the end I played with the colors until I found something that matched what our group was asking for.
Testing - against different backgrounds - what ultimately turned out to be the final logo color palette.
Successful Results
The new site launched in November of 2015 and has proven to be a success. We met our goal of being an award-winning website. But, more importantly, we built a site that better meets the needs of County residents and site visitors alike. Something exceedingly crucial for a site that, in 2014, received over 16 million pageviews - with 36% of traffic coming from mobile.
In the month following launch alone, we had over 215 sign-ups for the My Allegheny dashboard (where visitors can save events and content to a personalized page). Mobile traffic has also increased while, at the same time, the bounce rate has decreased.
Just like we want it!
Desktop: Biography and contact information. Mobile: Concert series event schedule.
