A web redesign with a new content strategy.
National League of Cities
NLC’s Redesign
- Merging of multiple Drupal sites into a new WordPress Gutenberg CMS
- Robust Single-Sign-On (SSO) solution
- SOLR dynamic filtering
- Digital rebrand and visual update
A major DC based association retelling their own story? Check. Unclear content model in desperate need of untangling? Check. Digital brand refresh for a modern audience? Complex integrations and migration? Check check check.
The National League of Cities (NLC) came to WDG with just about every challenge one might imagine when it comes to member association web redesigns — but most importantly, NLC came ready to build a meaningful relationship with their users.
For they know as well as we do, that relationship-building is the key to any successful organization.
Design: Untangling Complexity
NLC is the voice of cities, towns and villages across America with a bold mission to strengthen local leadership, influence federal policy and drive innovative solutions. They came to WDG looking for help untangling a complex content structure, creating meaningful connection points between multiple digital products, and migrating content from multiple sources into a single flagship website.
Our strategy team worked closely with multiple stakeholders from NLC to prioritize features that laddered up to the association’s overall goals of migrating to WordPress, fold in their blog, and reposition their content to better serve the needs of their users.
Key Engagements:
- Digital rebrand and visual update
- Innovative migration planning
- Merging of multiple Drupal sites into a new WordPress Gutenberg CMS
- Robust Single-Sign-On (SSO) solution
- SOLR dynamic filtering
- Member driven governance
Content Strategy: An experience for audiences of all sizes.
Content architects began the work of understanding NLC’s complex and various content products to develop a top-of-class resource library powered by SOLR search. Users can filter down by user-based taxonomies like city size, region, and topics.
And migration planning began on day one as the combined NLC-WDG team worked daily to audit, catalog, and make decisions on the future efficacy of content from multiple websites, blogs, and internal content. As part of this process, careful planning for merging websites was essential to ensure a seamless transition. The goal? Create a robust and deep, yet easy-to-access and understand, content experience for audiences ranging from members to students to the general public.
This Gutenberg website build was not without its unique technical challenges, however. Working with multiple vendors to create a seamless SSO experience, WDG developers coordinated experts from NetForum and HigherLogic to ensure all technical and user needs were met.
Results
Flexible content with room to grow.
A beautifully designed website that speaks with one voice to the priorities of the organization. It meets users where they are and directs them to content, sections, and target actions. It is flexible enough to grow with new initiatives and priorities, yet governable so that new silos are not created.
This site truly exemplified WDG at our best thanks to the trust we built with an expert client, the relationships that grew over time, and the attention and care paid towards each nook and cranny.
Work At WDG