WEBSITE OVERHAUL FOR NEWARK CITY PARKS FOUNDATION
The Newark City Parks Foundation (NCPF) provides free public programming across Newark’s five downtown parks. Their website serves as the foundation’s virtual identity and first impression for Newark residents and visitors. The previous web platform undersold the organization’s impact despite containing strong core content.
The redesign aimed to create a digital experience that reflects the care, investment, and community focus of NCPF.
Objective
• Transform casual visitors into active participants.
• Encourage community engagement through volunteering, donations, and event attendance.
• Elevate the storytelling and visual clarity of the foundation’s mission and programs.
Role
• UX / UI Designer, Visual Designer, Motion Designer
Tools
• Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects
Timeline
• March 2025 - May 2025 (2½ months)
Deliverable
• Full website redesign for desktop + mobile
• Updated IA, visual system, and content structure
• Improved pathways for volunteering, donating, and event discovery
Design Impact / Analytics
• +148.78% increase in meaningful, engaged visitors after the redesign
• User session duration increased from 3:11 → 8:01 minutes
• +127.54% increase in time spent on site
• Mobile engagement grew by +251.53%, demonstrating a major improvement in responsiveness and mobile experience
SEE THE PROCESS BELOW. ↓
AUDIT & ANALYSIS
To begin the website overhaul, we performed an audit of the previous website and found what worked and what didn’t.
From there, we were able to point out key issues with the navigation of the site and how to improve overall engagement.
2. RESEARCH
After analyzing touchpoints on the previous website, we began generating mood boards and gathering visual inspiration.
We found some websites that worked well at what we were trying to convey and gathered screen-shots of what made these websites work well.
Some examples of what we liked were:
- Engaging, full-screen visuals
- Humanistic, community callouts
- Identity system icons
3. USER FLOW
For the Newark City Parks Foundation website, our goal is to encourage website viewers to get more involved in the parks of Newark, New Jersey. Whether it be volunteering, donating, becoming a vendor, or simply visiting these parks, we want to inspire a sense of community in the inter-connected web of parks.
To do this, we came up with some user flows to understand the paths some users may take to the desired actions.
4. WIREFRAMES
Each of the members of our website team developed a wireframe to polish for an upcoming client meeting. Our overall goal was for a clean, professional look with a nod to the humanity of nature and community activities.
Some of our features included:
- Rounded Content Boxes … To promote the fluidity of nature and provide a soft, appearance to the site
- Full-screen visuals … To immerse the user in the parks through imagery
- Spotify Playlist … To unify website viewer’s with sounds and music that are prevalent in the Newark area.
- Iconography … To create a visual system that unites the 5 Newark parks.
- Social Media Imagery … To lead the user into more, community-led platforms such as Instagram.
Previously, the old website for the NCPF was highly unresponsive on mobile. This proved to be a huge obstacle for those who wanted information on park events without access to a desktop.
The site revamp seamlessly transitioned the desktop design to mobile and allowed for an overall increase of site-users (which were primarily mobile-site users).
5. LIVE SITE
By May 2025, we were able to translate our wireframes and ideas into the new, official website overhaul for the NCPF through a final stakeholder meeting.
Check out their website here!
Newark City Parks Foundation