We conducted four workshops with 25 internal stakeholders across various departments at the District. Workshops were facilitated discussions combined with exercises and surveys, and were structured around understanding the current problems with the site, determining target audiences, reviewing industry websites, and reassessing the branding for the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE, HIGHWAY & TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT.
The workshops yielded a tremendous amount of information about the wide variety of people who visit goldengate.org. This helped us take a user-centered approach to rethinking the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE, HIGHWAY & TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT´s site. Understanding who visits the site, why, and what’s important to them led the design team to break the new site´s structure into clear user journeys that prioritize information in a way that is useful and easy to navigate.
The prototype was updated to be clean and visually engaging. With large pictures of the bridge and various transit services, and a crisp design, the prototype brings a much-needed modern edge to the District´s online presence. In addition, we drew up clear branding guidelines for the District to use, to help create a crisper, more cohesive user experience.
On the front page of the prototype, site visitors are immediately presented with easy-to-access information about planning a transit trip, viewing the bus and ferry schedules, paying the bridge toll, or visiting the bridge for sightseeing. The site menu itself breaks content into clear categories: ‘Bridge', ‘Bus', ‘Ferry', and ‘About Us'. Throughout the site, visitors are offered clear navigation options that siphon traffic into clearly-defined information pathways, and content has been prioritized for ease of use.
GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE, HIGHWAY & TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT was thrilled with the results, and used our list of recommendations as the basis for an eventual full redesign project.
