Bryce Canyon Country
date: 2022
agency: vistaworks
role(s): UI/UX, designer, & developer
lead developer: michael
agency: vistaworks
role(s): UI/UX, designer, & developer
lead developer: michael
Bryce Canyon Country is the tourism brand for Garfield County, Utah. They needed a new site and design system created based on their current logo.
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They needed to be able to update the content of the site themselves, including the business directory and event calendar. For this reason, Wordpress CMS was chosen. I designed a custom theme and two custom plugins for them to make sure this wasn’t like your average Wordpress site. Michael Ricotta then handled the development of these items, with me adding a bit of front end help where needed.
The focus of the theme was the content; there’s blogs, itineraries, business listings, events, and so much more that needed to be included on the site, so layouts were kept clean and legible. The main navigation was broken into the different content categories so users could easily find what they need.
I did get to add a few special features, though, that made this site stand out from your average tourism site: dark mode (and auto-dark mode on the stargazing page), an app-like menu for mobile, and two custom plugins.
Itinerary Plugin:
I wanted the trip planning experience to be just as collaborative as the trip itself. This plugin allows users to save any item from the site (photos, events, blogs, etc.) to their own custom itinerary. They can share this itinerary via social or invite others to it and allow them to add their own items.
Location Plugin:
I wanted travelers to be able to get the same shots they see on the site on their trip. So I designed a location plugin that shows the user the exact coordinates of where a photo was taken via Google Maps. This is a bit of an IYKYK feature, as the icon only appears on hover, and you have to be logged in to your account to see it. This results in more sign-ups and email addresses collected.
This project didn’t have a huge budget to start with, but upon getting started, the timeline had to be significantly shortened due to the previous hosting company contract. Because of this, there wasn’t time for hi-fi mockups or prototypes, and the developer and I worked through most design and plugin questions with a lot of communication as it was being developed.
They needed to be able to update the content of the site themselves, including the business directory and event calendar. For this reason, Wordpress CMS was chosen. I designed a custom theme and two custom plugins for them to make sure this wasn’t like your average Wordpress site. Michael Ricotta then handled the development of these items, with me adding a bit of front end help where needed.
The focus of the theme was the content; there’s blogs, itineraries, business listings, events, and so much more that needed to be included on the site, so layouts were kept clean and legible. The main navigation was broken into the different content categories so users could easily find what they need.
I did get to add a few special features, though, that made this site stand out from your average tourism site: dark mode (and auto-dark mode on the stargazing page), an app-like menu for mobile, and two custom plugins.
Itinerary Plugin:
I wanted the trip planning experience to be just as collaborative as the trip itself. This plugin allows users to save any item from the site (photos, events, blogs, etc.) to their own custom itinerary. They can share this itinerary via social or invite others to it and allow them to add their own items.
Location Plugin:
I wanted travelers to be able to get the same shots they see on the site on their trip. So I designed a location plugin that shows the user the exact coordinates of where a photo was taken via Google Maps. This is a bit of an IYKYK feature, as the icon only appears on hover, and you have to be logged in to your account to see it. This results in more sign-ups and email addresses collected.
This project didn’t have a huge budget to start with, but upon getting started, the timeline had to be significantly shortened due to the previous hosting company contract. Because of this, there wasn’t time for hi-fi mockups or prototypes, and the developer and I worked through most design and plugin questions with a lot of communication as it was being developed.