VisitScotland.org is the main corporate site for Scotland’s National Tourism Organisation.
In 2018 I was part of the project team tasked with redeveloping the site. I was brought on as the main design resource for the project and was focused on revamping the UI design.
The site looked rather dated and needed a design refresh. It was important that the site worked for those on mobile even when browsing large amounts of data.
The existing site was often difficult to navigate and had a huge amount of redundant pages and old files. We were tasked with simplifying the site significantly and focusing on key user journeys.
Using existing site analytics we began to understand our user needs and created personas.
We created a set of wireframes for the main site pages and began to consider design system elements.
With wireframes to work from we then created high fidelity mockups and finalised a style guide
The site was then developed on a new CMS and thoroughly tested before launch.
To begin to understand who our users were we took existing analytics data and looked at which pages were used most. From this data we then created key user personas with matching user journeys through the most important parts of the site.
By identifying the existing pain points our users were facing we could begin to consider changes that would simplify the site and make the most important tasks more prominent.
A content audit was then carried out that massively reduced the amount of clutter on the site.
James the Journalist
Wants to see the latest news, access press releases and digital assets.
New Business Neil
Wants a clear overview of the ways VisitScotland can help his business.
Julia the Jobseeker
Wants to see if VisitScotland is somewhere she wants to work and apply for vacancies.
Corporate Callumn
Wants to understand the broad trends in tourism in Scotland & the UK.
Sunita the Student
Wants to explore VisitScotland research for writing a variety of essays and papers.
Teresa the Tourism Expert
Wants a clear overview of VisitScotland's ongoing marketing activity.
Initial wireframes were produced for each section of the site, allowing us to start coming up with design concepts using real content and layouts.
It was obvious from this early stage that most of the key journeys required easy to understand card styles and clean typography.
To begin to develop initial designs I produced some moodboards by looking for other successful site designs that incorporated clean card style elements and large bold typography. It was important that the site made good use of our amazing range of photography.
Working with these examples I started to develop card styles and create a typographic hierarchy.
After a round of initial designs we created a style guide with typography and colour palette. We added final module elements to this as the design became finalised.
Having a style guide in place was important to keep the look and feel of all elements consistent. It has also proven to be a useful resource for developers as the site was built.
Throughout the project the team worked in fortnightly agile sprints using Jira and a physical kanban board. As the site designs became more finalised I was able to help with testing modules as they were developed and made tweaks where necessary.
The site launched in June 2018 and has gone through several further phases of redevelopment bringing in new features and incorporating other parts of the business that had previously been under smaller microsites.
