Bethany Community Church
churchbcc.org
As Bethany Community Church was approaching its 100th birthday, they wanted to update their website which didn’t accommodate their many years of growth. Rapid expansion created a Frankenstein problem with the site’s structure and the way content was added. We worked to create a flexible layout allowing for future growth, a design that captured their unique culture, and a system optimized for content creators and administrators.
Challenge
Restructure Bethany’s site to accommodate multiple locations within a central church culture, solve the problem of cluttered UI and desktop-optimized design, and optimize the back-end system
Solution
Design a responsive website with a new site map that highlights the top-level organization, presenting all individual locations equally on a secondary level, using a new client-managed content system
We love your company and the professionalism of your people. Pretty amazing team really.
Bill Brammer, Executive Director @Bethany
How We Did It
Our approach started by analyzing the existing issues with a deceivingly complex website to evaluate core needs. We followed our user-centric process to produce a responsive, consolidated site with a clean design true to their identity.
Content Strategy
Creating order out of chaos
Expanding from their original Green Lake location to six around the Seattle area, Bethany’s website did not keep up with changes in the rapidly growing organization structure. Still centered on Green Lake, it was difficult to distinguish what was applicable to the whole church or specific to a location. We devised a new site map with a hierarchy that presented all locations equally. The main site was reserved for general, church-wide info, and each location got its own home page, allowing for fluid content and future locations.
Re-Branding
Capturing their existing culture
With an outdated style guide and inconsistent styles permeating the site, Bethany had a unique perspective that wasn’t being captured in their branding. We worked closely with them to truly understand their culture and identify their users so we could target them appropriately. Carefully selecting design elements, we achieved the nature-inspired, modern yet approachable look reflective of their culture, resulting in an identity both familiar and contemporary.
Rock RMS
Optimized workflows for admins
We worked with the Bethany team to choose a content management system that would optimize their workflow for updating content on the site as well as manage church related activities such as event registration, groups, and donations. The Rock RMS system fit the bill and provided additional security settings for controlling user admin access across their multiple locations.
Outcome
I was a bit speechless regarding the body of work you have done for us and the documentation that was such a major jump in what we've been able to do until you showed up. Thank you so much for being so great at what you do.
Bill Brammer, Executive Director @Bethany
