Successful website relaunch for non-profit organisation

Umweltberatung Luzern is a central point of contact for environmental, nature and energy issues in the Lucerne region. The website of Umweltberatung Luzern plays a key role in this - it presents a large part of the activities and expertise of Umweltberatung Luzern and offers a wide range of events, exhibitions, counselling services and loan materials on its website.

This made it all the more urgent to give the website, which was originally created in 2014 with Drupal version 7, a comprehensive facelift five years ago: It was no longer technically up to date, had an outdated design and a wealth of content that was increasingly difficult to manage. As a result, the old website led to dissatisfaction among employees and members.

One of the biggest challenges of the website relaunch was designing a new content structure. Important questions arose: How much of the old content should be migrated and how much new content should be created? What should the new information architecture look like?
The content migration included the transfer of images and extensive content, totalling over 200 pages. The large amount of data had a significant impact on the content structure of the new website, as care had to be taken to ensure that the content was easily accessible and intuitive to navigate. This required careful planning and structuring to ensure that the content was organised in a logical and user-friendly way.
MD Systems worked closely with the client to determine which content could be presented as flexibly and efficiently as possible. Based on the findings, MD Systems developed prototypes to visualise and test the new website and its content structure. Care was taken to ensure that the navigation was intuitive and the content easily accessible. 

Throughout the entire process, it was important to be in dialogue with the client and make constant adjustments to ensure that the information architecture met the needs of the users. Efficient project management ensured a smooth implementation within the set budget and schedule. 

The MD Systems development team took care of individual customisations in both the front and back end. Umweltberatung Luzern wanted to integrate a newsletter tool and various web forms such as order forms or templates for registering for events. It should also be possible to rent equipment via the website. 
To this end, we integrated various third-party applications, including Mailchimp, an interface for the event calendar and Planyo, an online reservation system and booking software. After the relaunch, MD Systems worked with the Umsicht agency to help Umweltberatung Luzern introduce individual navigation boxes in colours that match the website design and a new visual navigation with theme icons.

The relaunch was just the starting signal: Thanks to the flexible and user-friendly content creation in Primer, the amount of content has more than doubled since then. Many pages and articles are continuously being expanded, extended and updated. But that's not all - since the relaunch, around 250 event organisers have used the platform to advertise their events. In total, over 2,000 events are advertised on the website.

Efficient online content

However, the advantage of Primer is not only reflected in the appealing design of online articles, but also in its efficiency: many organisations face the challenge of managing their online content and printed brochures separately, which often leads to duplication of work. Combined with an improved printing function, Primer's flexibility in terms of content meant that Umweltberatung Luzern was able to completely replace its previous brochures and PDF documents with online articles. This means that content can now be presented in such a detailed and appealing way that separate brochures managed in a text editor have become superfluous. 

Even though the final step lies in the printing, the real advantage now lies in the efficiency and time savings achieved by centralising and optimising the content in Primer.

Conclusion

Umweltberatung Luzern now has a much-used, active website which, thanks to our Primer framework, is benefiting from organic growth and constantly increasing visitor numbers. The website achieves excellent Google positioning and fully fulfils the client's expectations.