We modernized Westa's website, boosting member engagement, reducing staff workload, and enabling independent management within budget.

Situation

The Western Association of Travel Agencies (Westa) had a website on an out-of-date codebase that required a developer to make changes. Members weren't using their discussion forum as much as they could, and the custom application that Westa used to deliver a key digital service to members was clunky, with no notification system to inform members of changes in status to their service. Additionally, at the end of each year, Westa staff would spend weeks manually creating reports for members on the use of that service.

Westa leadership wanted to modernize the website and custom application, decrease staff management, decrease reliance on a third party developer, and better communicate the value of membership... but they had a small association budget with which to achieve these goals.

What We Did

First, we identified a theme that was closely aligned with the travel industry, allowing us to save them money on the design portion of the project. This theme provided a base that we tailored with some light modifications to match their existing brand and integrated it into a content management system (CMS).

To make membership intriguing to potential members, we conducted a series of interviews with Westa's current members. Through these interviews, we were able to identify two main categories of members and how Westa provided value to them. We used this data to create custom membership benefit pages that persuasively demonstrated the value of membership and integrated into the theme's design.

For the larger part of the site for members that was behind the member wall, we implemented an intuitive architecture based on the "jobs to be done" framework championed by Harvard academic Clayton Christensen. We analyzed Westa's data and made user experience recommendations that would better serve their members, including placing the member forum in a more prominent focal point on the website. We identified the jobs that different members hired the website to do and personalized member access, so that different categories of members would have navigation and content that was tailored specifically to their goals or "jobs to be done."

For the custom application that Westa used to deliver the key member service, we rebuilt it for the new content management system. In doing so, we added functionality that made the application easier to use for both members and Westa staff. This included the implementation of a report generation feature, which saved the Westa staff several weeks of effort annually, as they no longer had to manually create these reports. Additionally, we implemented an email notification system that updated members each time their use of that service changed state as part of the delivery of the service.
Finally, we created a comprehensive website user guide, empowering them to manage the site independently without relying on a third-party developer while also capturing how to complete common tasks so that employee turnover didn't impact management of the website.

 

And we were able to accomplish all of this within the constraints of their limited budget.