Grand Canyon Website

http://grandcanyon.ucdavis.edu

Objective

Create an immersive web experience to support a captivating narrative, showcase the rich media gathered on the expedition, and enhance the reputation of UC Davis.

Goals

  • Increase awareness of the unique, innovative, collaborative and often adventurous teaching environment UC Davis has created for its students
  • Inspire prospective and current students to further investigate the programs and research opportunities available at UC Davis
  • Support the assertion thatUC Davisis a world leader in watershed sciences, plant sciences, wildlife biology and geology
  • Use innovative design, media, and technology to optimize and enrich the user experienceacross device platforms (mobile, tablet, desktop)
  • Partner with Capital Public Radio to present a congruous narrative and web experience and leverage the cooperation to increase traffic to both websites
  • Provide a litmus test to assess the viability of similar projects in the future

Target Audience

The primary audiences for this site were prospective students, current students alumni, outdoor enthusiasts, environmental journalists, policy makers and the general public. The launch of the site coincided with the Annual Conference for the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), which was hosted by Capital Public Radio and UC Davis. Promotion of the site continued through the start of fall instruction to best leverage the seasonal increase in web traffic our site experiences.

Number and Roles of Staff Involved

Staff involved in the conceptualization and production of the project included the Director of Visual Communications, Multimedia Specialist, Social Media Strategist, Environmental Content Provider, Lead Interactive Web Designer, Project Manager, and Web Manager. The bulk of the production duties fell on the Environmental Content Provider, who provided all of the written content for the story, the Multimedia Specialist, who provided the rich media, the Lead Interactive Web Designer, who designed and built the website, and the Web Manager, who provided development support and implemented the project.

Budget

The budget was constrained to the labor of the staff listed above and no additional costs were expended.

Launch Date

September 15th, 2016

Strategy

Our strategywas to compliment the first-person narrative style of the story with an immersive user experience by placing our audience in the footsteps of the students and researchers on the trip.To accomplish this, we designed the main navigation of the site as a map of the expedition and each page as a stop along the way. This approach along with the rich media and 360° videos provided for several of the stops brought users along for the occasionally bumpy ride down the Colorado river. This project also had the ancillary benefit of acting as a proof of concept for adding similar rich media storytelling websites to our department’s content strategy.

Navigation and Usability

The navigation was a central part in our strategy. We decided to use an interactive map of the expedition to allow users to follow along on the trip, but also give them the option to choose only the stops that were most interesting to them. From a storytelling perspective we wanted to have users join the crew for the expedition, but we also hoped to avoid user frustration by allowing them as much navigational freedom as possible. In addition to the interactive maps, we provided several alternate options for users to access the different pages of the site including optimized choices for mobile and desktop audiences.

Major Features

  • First-person storytelling
  • Mobile friendly navigation and layout
  • Interactive SVG’s, maps
  • 360° video
  • Ambient Video
  • Rich Audio Snippets

Innovation in Thought and Execution

The real innovation for this site was the combination of a user-friendly interface and experience with the immersive nature of the content. Experiential websites often place a burden of an interactive learning curve on users to enjoy the content of the web site. We sought to remove those barriers and make the “good stuff” as accessible as it could be for as many users on as many devices as possible.

Results and Metrics

The site was well received by target audiences with excellent reviews on social media and severalunsolicited email kudos. Kudos came in from the president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, from a senate democrat’s office, and the state floodplain manager of Illinois among others. With very little promotion the site achieved just under 15,000 pageviews (14,820) in its first 6 weeks and a majority of mobile viewership.

The successful completion of the project has also established a new workflow for similar structured endeavors, and encouraged a sense of shared ownership and cooperation for the department’s web production in the future.

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