Work / Whittier Uptown Association

Website redesign / UX

Whittier Uptown
Association

Everything Uptown does, in one place people can use.

Whittier Uptown Association, established 1954, Keeping Business First

Client

Whittier Uptown Association

Where

Whittier, CA

Year

2023

Lane

Rebuilt what existed

Live at

Not in this version

The 2023 Whittier Uptown Association homepage: a navy header with the Association seal, over a photograph of a busy tree-lined street fair, with a green panel reading Welcome to Historic Uptown Whittier.

One clear welcome, then the paths people actually arrive looking for.

Homepage, 2023

The Association had the opposite of a content problem. Businesses, restaurants, events, the Farmers Market, community resources, the history of Uptown, all of it was already on the website. What had gone missing was the order.

The situation

The homepage was carrying a moment. A recovery toolkit, weekly newsletters, and a run of events marked postponed took the top of the page, and the permanent things sat beneath them: the directory, the restaurants, the Farmers Market, the history of Uptown.

That is how association sites go. Every year adds a page and every season adds a notice, until the structure that made sense at the start stops matching how anyone uses it.

The Association did not need more content. They needed what they already had to be reachable in two clicks by someone who had never been to Uptown before.

What we did

Rebrand and rebuild. The work started with sorting rather than styling: who actually visits this site, and what does each of them come for. A resident checking Farmers Market hours. A visitor deciding where to eat tonight. A business owner looking to join.

Once those paths were clear, the design followed. Restaurants, shopping, events, parking, the museum, the Farmers Market and the board each got a place proportional to how often someone needs it.

The result was a site organized around people rather than around the Association's internal structure.

Before and after

Before2020

A recovery toolkit, newsletters and postponed events at the top. The directory, the restaurants and the Farmers Market underneath.

After2023

Same information, ordered by who comes looking for it, and given room to be seen.

Carlos gave us ideas that went beyond simply redesigning the pages. He helped create a better overall experience for our members, visitors and the community. Justin Tipton
Vice President, Whittier Uptown Association

An association serving members, visitors and residents at the same time, from one homepage.

Impact

The community answered, and so did the businesses.

Visitors found the new site cleaner, easier to navigate and more visually engaging. People could locate a specific restaurant, event or resource without the confusion of the previous site, and Uptown businesses were pleased with how they were represented.

01

Cleaner experience

A more modern, organized and visually engaging website.

02

Easier navigation

Visitors could quickly locate restaurants, businesses and community resources.

03

Stronger business visibility

Uptown businesses responded positively to their placement and presentation across the site.

Greenleaf Promenade, a destination page built to answer one question: where do we eat tonight.
The 2023 site on a phone: the navy header with the Association seal, the Welcome to Historic Uptown Whittier banner, a street fair photograph, and a Covid resources link.

Mobile

Most people find a directory like this on a phone, standing on the street deciding where to go. The structure had to survive that, so the same paths appear in the same order at every width, and nothing important hides behind a menu.

The same site, one hand, on Greenleaf Avenue.

What was in it

  • Website design
  • Website build
  • UX / UI
  • Content structure
  • Rebrand

The Association redesigned the site again after this engagement. The work shown here is the 2023 build.

Start here

Tell me what
you're building.

You do not need to know which service you need, or have everything figured out. Describe the business, and I will tell you where I would start and what it would cost.