Revolutionizing Outdoor Exploration Through a New, Accessible Digital Experience

Name: Anthro-Tech
Price range: $

The Problem

The Washington State Parks website urgently needed a redesign. Customers faced challenges like incomplete information and difficult navigation. Important alerts, such as burn bans, were buried in overwhelming content. The website also made many people feel excluded, especially those with disabilities or from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

The non-mobile-friendly design and inaccessible features worsened these issues, affecting its role as a public resource. Staff struggled to manage the website and keep information consistent and current. A complete overhaul was necessary to address these problems and make the experience more inclusive and customer-friendly.

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

The Solution

To prepare for the website redesign, our team worked with WA Parks to create a roadmap focused on customer needs and inclusivity. Using insights from research with current and potential park visitors, it outlined priorities, goals, and practical steps for implementation.

The roadmap led to key improvements:

Content transformation: Restructuring information architecture, introducing a new taxonomy, creating content style guides for clarity, and implementing a governance model for maintaining content
User experience (UX) design: Ensuring a consistent visual experience, accessible interactions, and new user flows
Iterative research: Conducting ongoing testing to improve usability for diverse visitors, including those with disabilities
Collaboration with the development team: Working closely to align the website management system with updated content and design
Training: Teaching staff to effectively use the new website and create clear, accessible content
Organizational change management: Helping staff understand and adapt to work environment changes

Incorporating feedback from 400 visitors, parks.wa.gov is now modern, inclusive, and accessible. The new design addresses 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 website makes it much simpler for visitors to find parks, with easy navigation, accessibility for assistive technologies, and complete park information. Trained in a human-centered approach, park staff have a user-friendly content management system (CMS) for efficient updates, ensuring current and relevant information.

New features include:

Easy park searches based on location, features, and amenities
Accessibility for screen readers, screen magnification, speech recognition software, and keyboard and trackball mouses
Details for safe and informed park visits
Quick access to the reservation system
User feedback for ongoing improvements and updating information

Through comprehensive usability studies and changes to the website's taxonomy, visitors can now find parks based on specific needs. For example, they can use the prominent "Find a Park" feature to search for parks that are pet-friendly, have available drinking water, offer accessible restrooms, and more. This approach improves the experience for many 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: Exercise with 50 participants to inform a user-centered information architecture (IA)
Tree test: Results from 276 participants informed IA updates
Prototype usability study: 10 participants, including 2 with cognitive and/or motor disabilities, informed design updates
Pre-launch usability study: 10 participants, including 3 with visual disabilities
IA, Modeling, & Content Creation: Information architecture
Editorial style guide
Taxonomy to help automatically connect content types 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 project on time and budget
Reporting progress and risks to project sponsors
Organizational Change Management: Planning and leading steering committee meetings
Raising awareness across the organization
Ensuring the project team received diverse stakeholder feedback
Writing communications to prepare internal and external audiences for the website launch as well as to raise excitement and support

“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.

Revolutionizing Outdoor Exploration Through a New, Accessible Digital Experience

Case Study

Washington State Parks

The Problem

The Solution

The Impact

Awards & Accolades

Further Reading

Newsletter