Preserving the Past With a Website for the Future
When tasked by Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans to redesign their website, Casual Astronaut created an eye-catching experience that drives results.
Challenge: By preserving historic buildings and neighborhoods, Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans (PRC) celebrates the cultures and people that have shaped the world-renowned city for 300 years. When its website started to show its age, PRC turned to Casual Astronaut to redesign it into a vibrant experience befitting of New Orleans. PRC offers a wealth of resources for homeowners, though there wasn’t a clear pathway for users to find what they were looking for. Pages were crowded with links of varying font sizes across multiple menus, all vying for the user’s attention. The lack of a consistent color palette made sections look the same, and the imagery didn’t portray the signature charm of New Orleans architecture.
Solution: After extensive research, C/A created a website that invites users to engage and empowers PRC to conduct business seamlessly. Our strategy:
- Start with the right foundation. C/A interviewed PRC staff and internal stakeholders to hear their pain points and determine goals for the redesign. We established a baseline for their site’s performance by conducting an analysis of their web traffic and third-party platforms.
- Guide the user to what they want. To help users find what they’re looking for, C/A overhauled the website’s menu, using descriptive and action-oriented links, like “Help for Homeowners” and “Make a Donation.”
- Organize a logical sitemap. The pages of the website are categorized so that users’ exploration is quickly rewarded with helpful information. Related content is dynamically shown, increasing users’ engagement with the site.
- Design a beautifully engaging website. PRC asked us to make the new site “feel like New Orleans.” Drawing inspiration from the historic architecture, we made a visually striking website adorned with thoughtful touches that capture users’ attention and compel them to dive deeper.
- Solve problems with code. In response to the pain points identified at the start, we developed custom features on the backend to make handling user transactions a breeze. We also built PRC’s dream feature: an interactive map where users can search a New Orleans address for its historic district information.
- Publish content that promotes return visits. From the latest advocacy news to stories from its award-winning Preservation in Print magazine, PRC writes content that its primary audience loves, presenting it in a well-organized and attractive content hub.
Capturing New Orleans Through Design
To fulfill PRC’s request to make the website feel like New Orleans, we put the architecture front and center. Some keys to the design process:
- Beautiful photos of iconic buildings catch the eye of users who care about New Orleans architecture.
- C/A curated a color palette inspired by the vibrant hues seen on many historic homes and implemented it throughout the site.
- Featured images are presented in an arch shape as a nod to the arched windows and doorways around the city.
- To impress PRC’s brand personality on the site, we decorated page headers with hand-drawn illustrations by their art director.
Building a Powerful Solution
After learning PRC’s goals and pain points, we developed a website that’s improved their day-to-day operations. Highlights from development include:
- Using publicly available datasets, C/A built an interactive map that lets users search for a property’s historic district information, a service that PRCNO was eager to provide its users.
- We wrote a custom plugin that lets PRC see all its shop orders in one place for a given date, vastly improving upon their workflow.
- To help manage memberships, C/A integrated the website with PRC’s CRM, which keeps both datasets automatically in sync.
From Our Client:
“Thanks again for all your hard work on this. We couldn’t be more thrilled!”
— Daneel Watson, Systems Integration Specialist