Evanston, Ill.-based Shore Community Services just launched its newly redesigned website, shoreservices.org. Imaginary Landscape managed the redesign, implementation and deployment of the new site.
"The process for any successful website redesign begins with a deep dive into the organization and industry and from it, a deep understanding of how the new website can contribute to the goals of the organization," said Brian Moloney, President and CEO of Imaginary Landscape. "This is a process we call Discovery and was the launching point for the Shore redesign."
Discovery is a process by which the Imaginary team gathered requirements, researched the industry and benchmarked the current site's performance. From there, the scaffolding of a new website emerges with recommendations for functionality, features and content.
Following the Discovery phase, the project moved into aesthetic design where Imaginary's designers provided a visual canvas that speaks to the target audiences and provides clear pathways to the information they seek. Based on the increasing use of mobile devices, this process is done from a mobile-first perspective to ensure the website presents all the relevant information within its custom aesthetic on the smallest of screens. Once the small screen is perfected, adjustments are made for the larger screens such as tablets and desktops.
"According to the 2023 M+R Benchmarks Study, the majority of nonprofit website traffic came from users on mobile devices — 57%, with 43% of traffic from users on desktop devices," said Moloney. "This is why a mobile-first approach is so important."
With the new website constructed on a staging server, the Quality Assurance team at Imaginary ran it through a battery of tests to ensure the new website was hardened, secured and readied for launch. Once all the testing and tweaking was complete, the website was deployed with a flip of a switch.
About Shore Community Services
Since 1962, Shore has provided a comprehensive array of services for intellectual and developmental disabilities including educational, residentual, vocational and related programs. The organization serves the north side of Chicago along with nearly twenty other communities.
About Imaginary Landscape
Since 1995, Imaginary has been building custom websites for not-for-profits, healthcare providers, governments, universities and start-ups. Services include custom application development, ecommerce storefronts, portals and dashboards, content management and consultative services