ATHENS ROAD RUNNERS
Type: Website Redesign
Timeframe: Summer 2023
Description: The Athens Road Runners (ARR) is a 501c(3) nonprofit encouraging a healthy lifestyle by running in Athens, GA. The organization has a diverse population of runners and is uniquely positioned in a large college town. In the summer of 2023, I recreated the ARR site, moving our services from WordPress to Squarespace. The project's goal was to provide a more captivating user experience while simplifying the website process for the Board of Directors.
Before
After
RESEARCH
The mission of the Athens Road Runners is “to inspire and engage individuals to achieve health, fitness, and training goals through the sport of running.” While the original website was used to share information on community runs, the redesign allowed us to ask, how can a website inspire someone to join a run club?
My first step in the redesign process was to research aspirational track clubs. I chose various geographic areas with a broad range of populations to understand how community running groups serve their specific locations. From the research, several themes made a website stand out:
Use of unique branding
A clear statement of group purpose
Current images and information
PROCESS
BRANDING
From the perspective of a user, it was important that the new website offer a more appealing experience while highlighting some key features of membership. Before addressing any feature changes to the website, I first revisited the ARR brand, which at the time consisted of one red, one yellow, and white color options. To help diversify the visuals across the website, and use color as a tool for capturing attention, I expended the branding to five colors.
After finalizing a color and font guide, I reviewed prior emails and direct messages across our platforms to better understand runners' questions when viewing our website. One consistent theme was learning what being a “member” means and why we charge a yearly fee. Because much of our traffic comes from mobile use, this information must be displayed concisely on the homepage. Using a drop-down menu and making this information the first section on the new homepage, we were able to provide many users with an appeal early in their site visit.
FUNCTIONALITY: ONE SITE, TWO DIFFERENT AUDIENCES
Throughout the process and through a survey, it was clear that two different audiences used the ARR website. Active members used the site to find information on yearly events and check the group run schedule. These users didn’t need to stay long on the site and could also ask other runners for supplemental information. A different audience, new users, experienced our website differently. These users had to learn several critical pieces of information quickly. I made a few design changes to alter the functionality of the site, specifically:
List group runs on the home page right under the hero image. This change allowed new and returning users to identify the schedule quickly.
Add a “New Here?” banner to the top of the site. This banner invites new runners to access a page dedicated to information on running in Athens.
Upload a variety of current photos, logos, and digital media. The inclusion of this content showed that the ARR community is a growing organization.
