CLIENT:
Cambridge Office for Tourism | cambridgeusa.org
ROLE:
UX Strategy, Web Design + Development for Tourism Marketing
OBJECTIVE:
Bring the new brand to life. COT needed a website and digital assets that position innovation and experience at the heart of Cambridge, MA. Using the latest digital tools, we’d need to make it simple for visitors to discover attractions and plan trips—whether for family, personal, or business.
The new site would need built-in functions and integrations to centralize daily operations and automate workflows for the COT team.
SOLUTION:
A custom-designed & developed website, an end-to-end interactive listing + map system, and a CMS back-end that allows staff to easily manage listings, promote campaigns, and leverage built-in automations to save time.
The new website drove:
• 21% increase in visitor sessions—16,748 more sessions in a year-to-year comparison
• 118% traffic increase on key pages
• Up to 55% more time on page learning about Cambridge’s offerings
The main features include:
• Bespoke design, strategic UX/UI
• Interactive maps w/ connected data
• Animations & user-controlled interactions
• Smart search & layered taxonomies
• Automated application system
• API integration & custom page feeds
Bite-sized Visuals: We use shapes, animations, and imagery to engage the audience in small blocks to avoid cognitive overload.
Our mission: bring the new branding to life in a way that modernizes COT’s online presence and engages its audience. We analyzed users, identified real-world search metrics, and established cornerstone KPIs that would help us build the content and UX strategy.
We embarked on a plan to build a powerful venue database system that would include quick filters across layers of taxonomies from dietary restrictions and price ranges to hotel amenities, business features, and neighborhoods. Though the build development may be complex, the user experience is intentionally simple. Further, the listing system has connective tissues built in across the website for page feeds and interactive maps that use relevance to keep future travelers, planners, and local businesses engaged.
Vibrant on-screen movement help to drive their fun, innovative brand.
Categorized listings & filters help users quickly find locations & plan their trip.
Auto-suggested results help users quickly find what they know they want.
Centralizing and streamlining admin functions for COT staff was a major focus. The site would leverage an intuitive back-end and automations to save staff time, training, and duplicative tasks.
We created an automatic listing draft + approval process that would be queued from an application form submitted from the website. Local businesses can submit their listing, entering their categorizations and amenities themselves, and COT staff simply reviews and clicks to approve.
Automated Data Entry: Local businesses can complete their own listing application. COT staff simply reviews and clicks “approve” to publish the new listing.
For Top Attraction Pages
16,748 additional sessions, YoY
Average growth on key pages
