Chautauqua County Historical Society
Founded in 1883, the Chautauqua County Historical Society is one of the oldest historical organizations in western New York. Their mission is to foster an interest in and knowledge of the history of Chautauqua County through the collection, preservation, and interpretation of objects and archives. Chautauqua County has an incredibly rich history and I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give them a modern website that would showcase their important work.
This one was near and dear to my heart! I was born and raised in Chautauqua County and have even worked with several members of the CCHS Board of Directors at one point or other. It was such a pleasure to work with them again and give them the web presence they deserve!
Updating an outdated site
The existing CCHS website was quite outdated. Built with the “box-within-a-box” design and background tiled wallpaper that were popular back in the early days of the web, it made finding relevant information difficult. The site wasn’t mobile responsive and had super small text, no discernable calls-to-action, a number of broken or dead-end links, and a confusing path to membership.
At one point, a separate Wordpress.com blog was created under a different domain name. It duplicated many of the links and information from the main site and stripped it of a great deal of relevant content—a nightmare for both search rankings and Google’s contextual ability.
Worst of all, the main site had been hand-coded in wobbly HTML and created using FTP, making it impossible for the CCHS volunteer board members and its single-person staff to maintain or manage the site. Yikes!
A look at the process
I knew Squarespace was the perfect home for their new website. Squarespace is so easy to use that I was confident CCHS volunteers would be able to pick it up in no time. Perhaps more importantly, so would anyone who joined the board or staff at a later date and inherited the site. I wanted to build their new site on a platform that would guarantee longevity and ease of use.
First things first: I put together a draft sitemap that would correct one of the existing site’s most glaring errors: the lack of a menu structure or page hierarchy that would help visitors easily find the content most relevant to them. I divided the new site into larger “buckets” and arranged pages within those buckets, enabling visitors to plan a visit, take advantage of research opportunities, learn about upcoming events, and stay abreast of news and other updates. As an example: Under the “Plan A Visit” menu, visitors get options to explore digital and physical collections and can easily find relevant information on parking, accessibility, and admission fees—all information that had been missing from the existing site.
Once the sitemap was approved by the CCHS, I created an outline for each of the 23 pages that would make up the site, indicating places for headlines, text, buttons, imagery, downloads, and the like. Then, the hard work of populating it fell to their newly formed website committee. They spent weeks writing and polishing content for each page, gathering images from their extensive archive collection, and preparing the information needed for their new online shop.
With approved content in hand, I was off to the races on design.
The result? A modern, mobile-responsive website that’s not only 100% on-brand but that beautifully showcases their important work. Here’s a look at a few of the new pages:
