Today marks the launch of the new COLA.org site. If you are not familiar with COLA, they are the largest, private clinical laboratory accreditation organization in the US. After assessing their previous website it was clear that a redesign was necessary to better serve the various parties that visit COLA daily. Our web development team here at NextLOGiK partnered up with COLA to discuss their vision for the new site.
Mobile-Ready
First and foremost, they needed a mobile responsive design. This was the number one reason for the redesign effort. With more than half of the US browsing the internet with a mobile device, compared to a little over 40% using a desktop, it is no longer a feature to be mobile-friendly but a necessity.
The old site (pictured on the left) displays the same on a desktop and mobile device. As you can see the text is hard to read and the links are too tiny to click on accurately. This can become very frustrating to today’s browsers and lead to people abandoning your site. The new COLA.org is pictured on the right with prominent branding, a mobile-friendly navigation menu, and content blocks that are divvied up so they are easy to read and interact with.
Consolidated Effort
Completely overhauling the website presented an opportunity to consolidate and streamline efforts at COLA. Previously, they were managing three websites under COLA’s branding which meant three different logins and plenty of confusion from their customers. After reviewing the Google Analytics reports on each site, we saw that most people were accessing the two sub-sites from COLA.org itself – it didn’t make sense to continue to segment these sites.
COLA.org is built on WordPress, which makes it very easy for admin to manage the site. Now, those involved with updating the website are able to post and edit content with one login on one domain. They don’t have to be a programmer or call our development team every time they want to post a blog, it allows for admin to become very independent.
COLA’s Chief Marketing Officer, James Liggins, worked with NextLOGiK staff to direct the development of the new website. “Jeff and his team were able to bring to light necessary enhancements to our site to improve the overall user experience while organizing our existing content to better direct users to their intended destinations” said Liggins.
Refreshed Look
As with any website redesign, COLA wanted a refreshed look to the site. Before any design mock-ups were created, our team first ensured they had the wire-frame of the new website set in stone. The wire-frame is the foundation of the website, outlining the different paths a user can take including primary and secondary navigation pages.
Once the outline was complete, our team went to work on the visual piece. What resulted was a clean and cohesive website that speaks to the COLA brand. Striking imagery was added to almost every page to keep the content compelling. Interactive callouts and live feeds of social media and blog posts were added throughout the site as well.
