Engaging conservation and exploration online.
After completing Openlands’ new branding, we tackled the website that grew over the years as new programs and projects popped up, with forms, links, and interwoven sections. We began by looking at the analytics and content structure and, with the communications team, determined that we needed to re-organize everything.
Information Architecture
The new site’s information architecture addresses the organization’s structure and unique and common user requests. We built a series of user-focused menus based on what we heard people say in our interviews. These flexible menus highlight users’ needs, not the organization’s structure. In the main hamburger menu, we created a complete list of all the site pages and sections, so people can see what Openlands offers and make the site easy to navigate for the internal staff.
New Maps Using Google Maps
The most significant new feature is integrating the previously third-party Illinois Waterways into the site and moving to use Google Maps with custom wayfinding and mapping. We brought all of Openland’s trails and paddle guides into one section called Maps, with regional trails, Openland’s Get Outside trails, and our Illinois Paddle Waterway maps. This section will continue to grow in the coming years and has the potential for many exciting features.
- The new site features:
- Re-imagined information architecture
- Comprehensive map sections with more than 600 maps
- Streamlined donation paths
- Seasonal promotional areas
