BRA Redesign Success: 4 Month Post Launch Check-in

Feb 07, 2014

If you haven’t heard the news, the BRA was nominated for Kentico CMS’s 2013 Site of the Year. Since we’ve been paying close attention to the way you use the website site and the feedback you’ve offered, this week we are excited to recap how we’re doing so far.

Looking Back

In October 2013, after 18 months of planning, the BRA launched the fully redesigned BostonRedevelopmentAuthority.org. The website’s redesign intended to offer constituents a more transparent, accessible, and engaging digital presence for the agency. We worked closely with our developers, Boston Interactive, to conduct extensive user testing. Through an iterative design process, the new site has been carefully organized so you, the user, can find what you need as quickly as possible. The website was completely reworked, reorganized, and its content rethought.
If you’ve forgotten what the site looked like before October:

And here’s what the new, redesigned website built looks like:

Here are some new features that came with our redesign:

• Easy to access Document Center,
• Interactive news and calendar section,
• Mailing list subscription to keep up to date on development project, planning initiative, and neighborhood,
• Agency contacts on every development project, planning initiative, and neighborhood

Site Performance*

So how have we been doing? A look at our analytics shows positive growth and smile-worthy statistics.

20% More Site Visits

The website has seen an average growth of 20% more weekly visits from the months previous to launch to the months post launch.

33% More Time Spent on Site

Visitor engagement is important to the agency, and the website has seen an average increase of 33% more time spent on the website (that’s approximately 3 more minutes that we had seen before the redesign). Thanks for spending time with us!

Bounce Rate Down 29%

Since launch, the website has seen a whopping 29% decrease in bounce rate. “Bounce rate” describes the percentage of visitors who came to a single page and left without engaging further with the site.

18.6% More Mobile Engagement

We’ve seen a mobile user growth of approximately 18.6% since the site has launched. Although the website isn’t yet optimized for mobile devices, we believe that the redesign makes mobile usage easier than ever.

Feedback from our community

• "...[the BRA's] new interface is beautiful #design #newboston #betteraccess" Jan 15, 2014
• “Love the New & Improved BRA website.... Easy to navigate and use. Great job!!” Jan 4, 2014

Feedback from the web development community

• “The BRA’s new site exemplifies everything a website should be about in terms of providing people with an online forum that encourages cooperation, collaboration and real community engagement,” Oldrich Januska, Kentico Director of Product Management
• “We are thoroughly pleased with the [website] and are confident that this new marketing tool successfully highlights the BRA’s positive impact on the city of Boston," Chuck Murphy, Boston Interactive CEO and Founder

Looking Forward

We’re not done yet! Be on the look out for new features including, but not limited to, an interactive glossary, better map and GIS functionality and a mobile optimized experience. As always, we encourage you to stay in touch and thank you for your feedback as these new resources are developed and refined. We hope that this website will help us better collaborate, communicate and connect as we work to push Boston forward.
* - Site Statistics/Analytics reported from July 2013 - January 2014