Project Objective

Design new website to showcase a new branding effort.

ConvergEvents is a new division for the well-established industry leading company Eric Hening Promotions (EHP). Since a large amount of EHP’s business caters to college-aged clients, the founder, Eric Hening, brought me on to craft their web presence and branding effort for the new division.

Strategy Meeting

Before starting the project, I had to align goals with the client.

I met with the founder of EHP, Eric Hening, who would also be my point of contact, to identify the details of my work with them:

• Goals: The client wanted an upgraded website to brand and position ConvergEvents, specifically marketing to college-students involved in music programming on campus and their advisors.

• Budget: The client had a specific budget which I translated to mean approximately 25 hours of work for me.

• Timeline: We wanted to get the website finished in time for students returning to college to be able to see, so by the end of summer the website had to be live.

• Vision: The new website would be a place where students and administrators could get a clear vision of what it was that ConvergEvents offers and how they execute a seamless show experience.

Website Audit

First I assessed the site that ConvergEvents had built prior to my involvement.

Their previous website was built using an older style WordPress template, and had some flaws which their previous developer was unable to fix. I wanted to improve upon this experience, and so I took a good look at what they were dealing with.

I focused on:

• What is this site accomplishing?

• How is information organized and is it easy to understand?

• What are the opportunities for better visual language and usability?

‍Navigating the WordPress site, I observed the following:

• Entire page is a single sheet, scrolling gets one to the necessary information.

• Information on the site is not well organized and mostly characterized by uniform blocks of text, which is not optimal for comprehension at a fast pace.

• Graphics and format of site don't emphasize the professionalism of the company.

• Contact form is hard to get to, and the contact form is a critical element for the functionality of the site.

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What I learned from exercise:

• There is an opportunity to make navigation and information architecture much more accessible

• The contact form must be more accessible, easier to reach at any point in the website.

• Visual style could communicate more professionalism while staying true to the collegiate image.

Comparative/Competitive Analysis

Moving on to the analysis portion of the project, I wanted to find out how other concert promoters and organizers structured their web presence. I did this by looking at ConvergEvents' competitors online.

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Going into my assessment of these sites, I had the following goals:

• Identify common design conventions and media elements being used by successful non-profit websites

• Gain inspiration for visual design of site

• Assess information architecture of established sites

Results of exercise:

From looking at websites in the same industry as EHP, I identified some conventions that these websites follow:

• Brand identity is central and prominent, displaying "what we do" and "who we are" up front.

• There are constant calls to action throughout the sites that encourage prospective clients to submit a contact form.

• Artists and history of success are displayed throughout the website.

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I would later use these insights to guide my design of the new website.

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Content Audit / Site Mapping

I mapped out the current ConvergEvents site in order to:

• Understand all of the different types of information the client wishes to highlight

• Figure out the best way to organize the page and deliver the experience the client wanted to give visitors

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What I learned from this exercise:

• There are too many clicks needed to access all the information on the site. Instead of each topic on separate pages, the information should be accessible on fewer pages.

• There are many pages that can be combined to make the site easier to read.

• The user is not presented with a "thesis" on the home page, which is a missed opportunity to give an overview of the whole site upon first visit.

Low Fidelity Wireframing

I did this exercise to play around with different kinds of layouts. I put a star next to my favorites, which in fact were the first two I drew. I leaned more towards the layout with a top-bar navigation, and so I took this layout to Sketch and made a high-fidelity wireframe.

Implementation

After layout was decided, I built the new site using a website builder called Webflow.

During the build phase, I kept the client well-informed and involved in the process, making sure the final project came out to his ideal specifications. Once we were finished reviewing and making edits, I published the website.