Roanoke Parks and Recreation
Award-Winning Custom Website for Roanoke Parks and Recreation
Project Overview
The City of Roanoke, Virginia’s Department of Parks and Recreation hosts 2,000 public activities each year and manages 14,000 acres of public land, including 65 parks and plazas, seven recreation centers, seven greenways, two swimming pools, and more than 90 miles of trails. In the fall of 2016, they issued an RFP for a website redesign. Their marketing coordinator sought a website that was user-friendly, accessible, mobile-responsive, and designed to drive lead conversions and activity registrations.
Our Solution
434 submitted a bid to the RFP and was awarded the contract. We began working with the City of Roanoke in December 2016 and launched their website three months later. Our process began with data collection and feedback from leadership. The client also sought input from community members and City personnel. Their collective feedback guided the development. After reviewing user heatmap and behavioral analytics data with the client, we built a custom, mobile-responsive, and ADA-compliant website for the Roanoke Department of Parks and Recreation developed on the WordPress CMS.
- Design and UX Strategy
- Mobile-friendly and Fluid Responsive Design
- Full Event Calendar System for 2,000 Annual Events
- Custom Parks and Facilities Search Map
- Custom Pages for Park Information
- Parallax Video Call-to-Action Sections
- ADA Compliant Design
- Backward Compatibility for Browsers
- Ongoing Maintenance, Hosting, and Technical Support
- Embedded Language Translation Options for Accessibility
Project Outcomes
The City’s investments in improved website navigation, usability, ADA compliance, and the integration of interactive elements paid off within months. The new Play Roanoke website was launched in March 2017, and within six months the City of Roanoke observed a 30% uptick in community recreation program registrations. The new website generated an average of 100 new leads per month, caused a substantial increase in inbound traffic, and was awarded a 2017 Gold Summit Award from the Public Relations Society of America.
