Website redesign - Washington EFSEC
Lead content strategist @ Anthro-Tech
The Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) is an independent state agency that serves as a “one stop shop” for the siting, licensing, and oversight of major energy facilities’ construction and management throughout the state. Formerly a part of Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC), the agency was celebrating its third year in operation when it embarked on this ambitious redesign project.
The primary goal of the website redesign was to introduce EFSEC’s purpose and mission to the public by providing more transparency into the siting process. The website redesign occurred in tandem with a full branding redesign including a new logo, brand colors and agency collateral.
Project highlights:
Audited, analyzed and restructured content to guide how to revise, consolidate or archive unnecessary content across 400 web pages and nearly 10,000 documents.
Facilitated plain language training for agency content creators to prepare them to undertake collaborative copyediting efforts later in the redesign process.
Developed 8 new content types, 4 reusable components and 12 controlled vocabularies to support programmatic content updates for faster, more efficient authoring.
Co-designed a new governance model alongside client stakeholders to evolve and streamline website management and improve document tagging and governance.
The challenge
Design a website that helps the public understand this brand new agency’s mission, activities and purpose within a complex and controversial domain.
How might we…
… demonstrate transparency and promote trust with the public by sharing relevant, understandable updates about what the agency is doing and why?
Process snapshot
1. Discovery
Content audit - Following a content inventory to gather key information about the website’s 400 web pages and nearly 10,000 documents, I conducted a sample audit to analyze key issues, gaps and opportunities shared across the website’s content, structure and overall messaging strategy.
2. Definition
Adaptive content modeling - Multiple teams used the content models throughout the design process. I used Airtable views to build models specifically for designers, developers and UX writers — which helped team members focus on what information was most relevant to them.
3. Design
Structured page types - To streamline content management and promote consistency across a constantly changing site, I worked closely with front-end developers and UX/UI designers to design page types that evolved and flexed as information was added over time.
4. Delivery
Content production training - The client team needed help navigating the shift from one content governance process to another. I developed and delivered customized training to help authors learn how to create and edit content through hands-on, scenario-based learning.
Outcomes
We successfully launched the new website in less than a year and assisted with the migration of over 5000 documents into a new, programmatic site structure. The effort involved contributions from a dozen authors and subject matter experts, a UX/UI designer and a supporting UX writer alongside our development partners.
Artifacts
Content audit report
Content models
Annotated page templates
Voice and tone guide
Content inventory database
Production sitemap
Tools
Airtable
Excel
Figma
Drupal 10
ScreamingFrog
Miro