Revolutionizing Outdoor Exploration Through an Updated Accessible Digital Experience

Name: Anthro-Tech
Price range: $

The Problem

The Washington State Parks website urgently needed a redesign. Customers faced challenges like fragmented information, disorganized navigation, and important alerts, such as burn bans, buried in overwhelming content. The site's lack of inclusivity, especially for those with disabilities, and failure to resonate with diverse ethnic backgrounds left many feeling excluded.

The website's non-mobile-friendly design and inaccessible features compounded issues, hindering its role as a public resource. Staff struggled to manage the site, facing difficulties in maintaining consistent and up-to-date information. A comprehensive overhaul was necessary to address these shortcomings and ensure a more inclusive, customer-friendly experience.

website home page screens — The Washington State Parks website before and after the redesign project.

The Solution

In preparation for the website redesign, our team collaborated with WA Parks to create a comprehensive roadmap. This roadmap emphasized customer-centricity and inclusivity, drawing insights from research involving both current and potential park visitors. Specific priorities, goals, and actionable steps for implementation were outlined.

The roadmap led to key enhancements:

Content Transformation: Restructuring information architecture, introducing a new taxonomy, and establishing content style guides for clarity. Implementing a governance model for content maintenance.
UX Design: Ensuring a consistent visual experience, accessible interactions, and new user flows.
Iterative Research: Conducting ongoing testing to enhance usability for diverse visitors, including those with disabilities.
Collaboration with Development Team: Working closely to align the website management system with updated content and design.
Training: Providing staff with training for effective use of the new website and clear, accessible content creation.
Organizational Change Management: Supporting staff in understanding and adapting to work environment changes.

The revamped parks.wa.gov website, shaped by feedback from 400 visitors, now boasts a modern, inclusive, and accessible design, addressing long-standing usability issues, particularly on mobile devices.

Mobile website screens shown on phones — The Washington State Parks mobile website before and after the redesign project.

The Impact

The updated Parks website significantly enhances the park-finding experience for all visitors, offering easy navigation, accessibility for assistive technologies, and comprehensive park information. Trained in a human-centered approach, park staff use a user-friendly Content Management System (CMS) for efficient updates, ensuring current and relevant information.

New features on the website include:

Effortless park searches based on location, features, and amenities.
Accessibility improvements such as screen readers, screen magnification, speech recognition software, or keyboard and trackball mouses
Details for a safe and informed park visit.
Seamless navigation to the reservation system.
Users can provide feedback for ongoing improvements, contributing to up-to-date information.

Through comprehensive usability studies, the website's taxonomy, particularly the prominent "Find a Park" feature, has been shaped to allow visitors to locate parks based on specific needs, such as pet-friendly, available drinking water, accessible restrooms, and more. This approach enhances the experience for a wide range of park visitors, ensuring the website continues to meet diverse requirements.

Awards & Accolades

Communicator Awards: Government Website, Website Redesign, Visual Appeal - Aesthetic, Structure and Navigation
GAADY Award, The Global Accessibility Awareness Day Foundation
MUSE Creative Awards: Tourism Website, Government Website, Website Redesign, Home Page/Landing Page
Davey Awards: Tourism Website, Government Website, Website Redesign, Structure and Navigation, Best User Interface, Best Use of Navigation

Project Toolkit

User Experience Research: Card sort study: Sorting exercise with 50 participants to inform a user-centered information architecture (IA)
Tree test: Results from 276 participants informed updates to the IA
Prototype usability study: 10 participants, including two with cognitive and/or motor disabilities, informed updates to the design
Pre-launch usability study: 10 participants, including three with visual disabilities
IA, Modeling, & Content Creation: Information architecture
Editorial style guide
Taxonomy to help automatically connect content types or for filtering content
Content creation and migration plan
Content templates, or recipe cards for editors writing pages
Content governance plan
User Experience Design: User flows
Wireframe prototype
Design system and visual style guide
Icon set for a complex taxonomy
Training: Writing for the Web training for 20 content editors and publishers
Project Management: Leading meetings and keeping the team on track with schedule and scope
Keeping sponsors up-to-date on project progress and risks
Organizational Change Management: Planning and leading steering committee meetings
Raise awareness across the organization
Ensure that diverse stakeholder feedback is reaching the project team
Writing communications to internal and external audiences to prepare them for the website launch as well as to raise excitement and support for the change

“One of the biggest barriers to people and recreating outdoors is information, and access to information... The goal of this website is really to make sure that anybody from the first-time visitor to the expert-level adventurer can find and understand information.”
—Stephanie McDermott, Brand Marketing and Creative Manager for Washington State Parks

Facts & Figures

50: Card sort participants.
276: Tree test participants.
10: Pre-launch usability study participants, including people with disabilities.

Revolutionizing Outdoor Exploration Through an Updated Accessible Digital Experience

Case Study

Washington State Parks

The Problem

The Solution

The Impact

Awards & Accolades

Further Reading

Newsletter