Case Study

CORE TEAM SIZE

10 (1 Web Professional (myself), 3 Marketing Staff, 1 Senior Vice President, 1 Vice President and 2 Business Development Staff, 1 Back End Developer, 1 IT Project Manager)

GOALS

To increase interest in GGP's business development opportunities.

AUDIENCE

Marketing professionals at corporations and media agencies that would either advertise or hold promotional events in GGP's shopping centers.

PROCESS

1. Discovery: Met with entire team to discuss Business Development's needs, likes and dislikes of current site, ultimate audience for the site and feedback on similar sites. The Marketing team also incorporated their ideas. I also contributed based on research and my own experience.
2. Information Architecture: Collaborated with the marketing staff to organize Business Development's thoughts into a site map, meeting their needs and meeting the needs of their end user.
3. User Experience: Developed wireframes based on requirements, site map, and research. This phase included presentations and reviews. At this time, the wireframes were shared with the back end developers.
4. Creative: Collaborated with my team of web designers to create comps based on the wireframes. This phase included presentations and reviews.
5. Front End Development: Worked with my team to execute the approve design as an HTML site, including CSS and JavaScript.
6. Back End Development: Collaborated with the back end developers, reviewing their work, addressing issues that arose in the transition of the files from HTML to .NET.
7. Approval and Launch

THOUGHT PROCESS

When looking at the previous site, I evaluated what worked and what didn't from both a UX and creative perspective.

User Experience: The previous site was basic brochure-ware. It consisted of only 8 pages that explained what BD did, but only on generally. Taking the previous site, I looked at where the pitfalls lay in the both the architecture and overall experience. With that in mind, I set out to create a richer experience that would be more promotional than explanatory (or "bragging" as I put it to BD). Incorporating all of the features from their old site, I added more internal linking to help visitors find what they needed quickly (for example, an About Us page might need a link to their promo video, a recent project, and a way to find a mall based on demographics or location). Further, by adding an extensive library of project case studies, the site would not only explain what services were available, it would demonstrate and inspire as well.

Creative: The Business Development team had specific branding that they used on all of their promotional material that needed to be incorporated but the Marketing team wanted to minimize the use of that branding. The use of green (GGP's corporate color) was crucial to create the sense that it was a GGP site. The old site was black with green and magenta accents. Speaking to an audience that would include people who were used to working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, I chose a palette that would generate the same feel.

OUTCOME

The previous website was the lowest-performing site in GGP's portfolio from an analytics perspective. With the launch of the new site, traffic shot up within two months to make it one the highest-performing sites.