Having completed a recent rebrand, the Presidio of San Francisco approached Material to define a new digital experience. The overarching goal of our work together was to create a redesigned website that would drive more visitors to the park, attract underserved visitors who traditionally have not visited national parks, and increase conversions to businesses in the Presidio.
An essential part for helping Presidio reach its goal was to build a new CMS that would be the foundation of Presidio’s technological future, enabling its digital ecosystem to grow over the next decade and support the Presidio’s current content needs while serving as a launch pad for continual functionality and analytics enhancement. Our website redesign included the following objectives:
- Creating a unified CMS system, supportive for future growth, with roadmapped features and functionality
- Developing a paramount visitor experience, facilitating understanding of the Presidio and all it has to offer
- Implementing the new park brand, including visuals and messaging
- Implementing Google Analytics 4 Requirements
- Building brand loyalty and nurturing lasting relationships by connecting the physical to the digital through visual design inspired by the park.
Prioritizing accessibility and inclusivity, and increasing visibility and discovery, our approach involved building a unified, design-forward, user-centric website that would support the Presidio’s current content needs but also serve as a launch pad for continual functionality and analytics enhancement.
We utilized stakeholder insights, ethnographic research, onsite visits and a user journey workshop to guide ideation and push the potential of the Presidio experience. Reviewing our findings and data collaboratively, we identified user goals and created a vision that, over time, will help users plan their visit, navigate the park, capture their experience and provide intelligent enhancements to visitors based on personal preference. This included:
- A discovery process to identify key research themes and translate those into actionable design items.
- Creating a complete content strategy, UI and product design, tech platforms, SEO, copywriting, design language system and modular design structure.
- Harness user generated content authentic to the Presidio.
- Highlight the park’s rich story, history, legacy and overall transformation, helping visitors feel connected to the park and its mission.
- Create helpful and informative content and itineraries to make users want to come back and explore more.
Executing against our key objectives and strategy, our team developed a number of deliverables, helping the Presidio create an emotional connection with visitors through a digital experience. Final deliverables featured:
- A full website redesign featuring all new content and SEO optimization
- A redesigned system featuring elements inspired by the Presidio’s rich history and wildlife to reflect the visual feel of being at the park, creating an immersive, playful digital experience
- 43 full page comps, 328 targeted keywords and 28 modules
- Conversion to Google Analytics 4 with Looker integration to allow for deeper interpretation of data and visitor needs
- Creation of a robust design language system that served as the foundation for the new site’s library and templates
- Integration of AA accessibility standards to make the website experience as accessible and inclusive to all as possible, allowing for increased visitor satisfaction, engagement and contributions to the park’s image and reputation
- Addition of a language toggle in the top navigation
- The creation of a wide variety of itineraries based on interest and activity levels
- A diverse representation in site imagery, and highlighting transportation and free programming in the park to create content that was understandable and inclusive to a diverse range of users
- Maps for trails and regions, integration of Google Maps, and transportation to, from and around the park
- Development of a new site navigation menu with robust filtering capabilities, tagging system and flexible cards to make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for and discover something new.
The refreshed digital presence and site elevated the Presidio’s brand to create an emotional connection with visitors, generating brand loyalty and lasting relationships. Our comprehensive website redesign resulted in:
- 8% increase in sessions year over year
- 11% increase in users year over year
- 3% point increase in local users (from San Francisco)
- 10% point increase in local users (with a 100 mile radius of San Francisco)
- 6% point share of site traffic increase in Explore content (attractions, itineraries, events, news).
- Search results position is up for keyword topics including Attractions, Beaches, Businesses, Camping, Golden Gate, Hiking, Trails, Playgrounds, Venues, & Walks.
- Of the 38 keywords being tracked, the Presidio has moved up 3.02 positions in search results, to an average position of 2.42 (from 5.44).
Video for Material: The Presidio
