Emily Gilles
banner-parks.png

Reorganizing Seattle Parks & Rec site

Patrons couldn’t find what they needed on the sprawling Parks website. I led an information architecture and homepage redesign to make programs easy to find.

The challenge

Parks and Recreation is one of the City of Seattle’s largest departments. They manage over 450 parks and facilities and offer programming like sports, childcare, and fitness classes. With about 700 pages, the Parks and Recreation website was difficult for residents to navigate.

Plus, the navigation and home page design elements hadn’t been updated in more than six years, making it harder for residents to quickly find the programs, facilities, and resources they needed.

“I’m a working mom, I’m only looking at your site after my kids go to bed. I can’t call customer service for help at 9pm.”
— Usability test participant
 

The approach

I led collaborative workshops to define customer profiles and top tasks.

I identified high-priority resident tasks by reviewing analytics, complaint logs, annual reports, and subject-matter expert interviews. Then I facilitated a stakeholder workshop to translate findings into clear customer profiles.

I validated improvements through usability testing

I designed a usability study comparing the live site to a redesigned prototype. The prototype improved success rates on 10 of 17 tasks. I then made targeted adjustments based on findings.

  • I led the information architecture and home page redesign and user research. The Parks & Rec marketing director was my client for this project.

  • Skills I used include usability testing, workshop facilitation, information architecture, content auditing, and UX design.

  • I designed prototypes in UXPin. I also used Mural for workshops and research. I created content audits and documentation in Excel.

 
Customer profile for event planners, which includes digital sticky notes for user jobs, pain points, and gains
 
 

The solution

A navigation with more jumping off points

I replaced 4 vague top-level links with 7 clear categories, dropdowns, and 2 utility links. I added secondary links for high-demand services and reorganized content for easier discovery on desktop and mobile. Mobile menus gained 3 more high-level categories and 2 utility links.

The mobile menu changes included adding 3 more high-level categories and 2 utility links.
 

A more focused homepage

I reduced visual clutter, highlighted one main call to action, and surfaced links to top tasks. I also added translated information that had been hidden in PDFs, plus quick access to parks, news, and current projects.

Before:

Old homepage was busy with background photos and overwhelming calls-to-action

After:

The new homepage design is more simple, with 1 main call to action and links to top tasks.
 

The results

  • The redesign launched after my departure in 2022.

  • The redesign added 50 links to the navigation menu and 15 new category pages to the site.

  • The redesign removed 40 outdated pages and improved the titles of 30 pages.

  • The new homepage content is updated regularly by the department to highlight seasonal activities.