Design Forum Finland’s website redesign
Design Forum Finland maintains the Finnish Association of Crafts and Design (Suomen Taideteollisuusyhdistys – Konstflitföreningen i Finland ry), which was established in 1875. The association includes businesses and organisations closely related to the design field.
The website revamp for Design Forum Finland began with conceptual workshops. The concept development emphasised particularly on serving the members and reorganising the site’s hierarchy. Visually, there was a desire to create something new—moving away from the previous site that mainly used black and white, Design Forum Finland developed a new colour palette that was incorporated into the visual redesign of the site.
Explore the Design Forum website
Results
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User base increased
21,3 %
Compared to the same period last year since publication on 4.1.2024
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Page views increased
88,6 %
Compared to the same period last year since publication on 4.1.2024
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Engaged sessions increased
14,1 %
Compared to the same period last year since publication on 4.1.2024
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Average visit duration increased
31,2 %
Compared to the same period last year since publication on 4.1.2024
Starting point
The starting point for the Design Forum Finland website was to direct the site more effectively towards end-users. The following questions guided the website’s conceptualisation:
- How do we serve members and potential future members through the site?
- How do we share information and attract more visitors to the site?
- What kind of information and assistance can we provide to businesses?
The page hierarchy began to be built around these ideas. Navigation and page names were clarified so that users can easily and quickly find information, such as guides and other materials.
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Päivi Kaira
Brand Manager, Design Forum Finland
Our goal for the website redesign was to create a site that better aligns with our updated strategy. Customer focus, engagement, clarity, high-quality user experience, and a top-notch visual appearance were crucial starting points for this project. Working with Redandblue was flexible and straightforward.
The knowledgeable team provided us with fresh ideas and appropriately challenged our perspectives. Projects of this nature can sometimes tend to stretch and expand, but effective project management ensured that the final result was completed on schedule. The design process involved collaboration while also allowing sufficient time for our internal, independent work. Together, we developed a high-quality website, and our collaboration continues as we analyse and continually improve the site. Our team considers this a successful project.
Design and Production: Redandblue
Client: Design Forum Finland
Competition Categories: Best Digital Service, under €60,000; Most Ecological Website
Budget: €45,000
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Päivi Kaira
Brand Manager, Design Forum Finland
Website design and usability testing
The design process began with the development of the user interface. Design Forum Finland had clear needs for the site, and the design work was driven by the requirements for content placement. The design progressed quickly toward the visual stage, facilitated by Design Forum’s own plan regarding colours and other elements. This phase involved strong collaboration with the client.
The result of the design phase was a prototype that was used for usability testing with five representatives from the target audience. These individuals were business clients or representatives of stakeholders who use the Design Forum website. Based on the results of the usability tests, further adjustments were made to the user interface before the implementation began.
Technical implementation
For the technical implementation, the website was developed using WordPress, as always with Redandblue. The careful planning of the website required equally meticulous technical execution. Custom content types were created for different types of content, and the management system was designed to guide users effectively. Features implemented on the website included various content filters and the ability for users to upload materials to the knowledge base using their email address.
Ecology and performance
The performance of the service has been measured using tools such as Google Lighthouse – the Performance score is 100 on desktop and 93 on mobile. To ensure an optimised user experience, the site employs a plugin for image compression, converting images to a lightweight webp format without significantly compromising quality. The site’s colour palette uses white backgrounds very little, thereby reducing electricity consumption on screens. Additionally, the hosting service for the site uses servers powered by renewable energy from Seravo.
Other services
For Design Forum, we also conducted an analytics workshop, keyword research, and visualised data in Google Looker Studio.
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