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SCC was ready to take their print budget and go digital with it, and we were excited to be part of that shift. They wanted to be able to actually track the impact their marketing efforts were having.

We worked with the team at SCC to develop a consistent brand voice and an engaged community on social media. A highlight for us was getting to be a part of Crashed Ice when it came to Edmonton.

Soon after, Imran Gill, their marketing and communications manager asked us to spend a year working with him to redesign the SCC website. The site wasn’t even two years old at that point, but the site structure and functionality were not helping the conference centre achieve its business goals.

We continue to work with SCC (now known as Edmonton Convention Centre) on website maintenance, campaign implementation, and analytics. We’re proud to report that in the year following launch, leads from SCC’s website increased by 68%.

New Website Goal:

To provide easy access to the information event planners need to make decisions about booking events, and to have an easy-to-update events calendar with multiple category options so different event attendees could quickly find what they were looking for (naturally, this is especially important on their mobile devices).

Different pages of the Shaw Conference Centre's website is seen on an iPhone, an iMac, and an iPad

Screen Design & Development

Imran came to us with his hand drawn vision for rearranging the pages of the existing website to make more sense for SCC’s audience. We used his vision to develop a site blueprint to determine the visual elements, information hierarchy, and calls to action that each page on the new site would require.

Initial wireframes that visually reflected what was defined by the site blueprint were designed next. Together with the SCC team, we revised the wireframes to incorporate best UX practices into identified customer paths, and also addressed specific requests from SCC. These requests included: drop-down menus for the top navigation, having galleries of images for all secondary pages of the Planning An Event section, and including social share links that popped out on scroll.

A white iPhone with the Shaw Conference Centre's website on the screen

The Events Calendar and Events pages are very important for SCC’s audience, and we dedicated a lot of time to determining the best way to layout this area of the site. We were committed to avoiding the terrible “click-the-date-on-the-calendar” option of listing events, so we chose to style the Events Calendar similar to the Blog section of the site. We used a grid of images to draw attention to each event and made sure the events could also be sorted by both category and date. This flexibility was imperative because of the large variety of attendee types that SCC caters to.

Limitations

There are a couple of places on the new website where high-quality images of specific dimensions are needed in order to maintain the integrity of the design. Unfortunately, there are times when event organizers do not provide Imran and his team with appropriate images. This leads to a break in the pattern of the site and can be distracting for a visitor. We’re working to avoid this by providing event organizers with specific image and photography requirements that they must provide after their event is booked.

Reflections

This is an incredible organization that we are proud to work with. The Shaw Conference Centre is a pillar in the Edmonton community, and working with Lisanne and Imran has always been a pleasure. There’s also something fascinating about walking down the same hall for a marketing meeting that you were dancing down during a beer festival a few nights earlier!

Following the site launch, IABC (the International Association of Business Communicators) awarded our Shaw Conference Centre website redesign project with an Award of Excellence in Digital Communication! We were proud to have our collaboration with Imran Gill and his team at SCC recognized — for both the design of the website and for the actual, measured impact it has had on their goals.

The Shaw Conference Centre website also won a Gold MarCom award.

Results

Results are from October to December, compared against the same time period in the previous year prior to the new site launch.

Number One Goal: Increase event and general contact inquiries by 20%.
Result: Event inquiries have increased by 59% and general contact inquiries by 90%.

Goal: Increase visits to the Planning an Event pages of the site by 20%.
Result: Visits to these pages have increased 31% since website launch.

Goal: Increase visits from the Edmonton community by 30%.
Result: Visits from Edmonton have increased 56%.