Berkshires Outside Case Study

Measuring Success

BRPC collaborated with the folks at 1Berkshire and Berkshires.org to turn the idea of this project into a successful website. We wanted to know what success would look like for them. We started by asking their team how we can measure this project's success if the website was already built.

The overall mission was to build awareness about outdoor recreation sites that have low visitation and to distribute the popularity of these places. To measure success, we agreed we would need to look at the number of unique visitors, the number of referrals to us, and the popular pages viewed on the website. We also wanted property managers to see an increase in visitation and usefulness of their sites.

To build a website people wanted to use, we decided to create three visitor personas: a young mom and resident of the Berkshires, an older man and second homeowner, and a city resident looking for some outdoor recreation. We thought about the things they liked, their pain-points, and the information we could provide.

Then we worked on the visitor journey, which is a look at what motivated the visitor to look for outdoor recreation and how our new website was first introduced to them. We wanted to know how they might use the website, the pages they would visit, and the imagined result of their visit. We did this for each persona and the group uncovered insights that set the course for how this project was going to come together.

Outdoor Branding

The look and feel of the new website needed to connect with people looking to explore the outdoors any time of year. We adopted a pallet of earth tones, sand and foliage, and included bright yellow and orange as accent colors. The accompanying logo design went through a series of iterations on an idea to combine trail markers and signage with the words "Berkshires Outside". Our designer found the clever “Be Outside” which we highlighted ever-so slightly.

Building a Custom CMS

BRPC had been collecting data about every outdoor recreation spot in the Berkshires, and entering that data into a Microsoft access database. Every trailhead, parking spot, and amenity, including its condition, had been meticulously documented. Making this information public, and presenting it in a useful way, would require the design of a new database and a custom content management system.

We started by analyzing the data store, asked questions, and offered suggestions for improvement. Sometimes we knew best, but other times we didn’t understand the data as well as they did. Our collaboration allowed us to complete the data analysis and start designing a new database structure that should sustain the project in the future.

We developed the corresponding custom CMS which allows BRPC staff to log in and create, read, update, and delete data as they see fit. The changes they make are live on their new website, bringing everything together.