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Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks

At a glance

Type:
Nonprofit
Location:
Seattle, WA
Launch Date:
June 6, 2019
Services:
  • Custom WordPress Features
  • Custom WordPress Theme
  • Interative Data-Driven Map
  • Responsive Design
  • Training

Visit the Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks website

Home page on large screen of SeattleOlmsted.org
Home page on phone-size screen of SeattleOlmsted.org

A total website overhaul doesn’t have to change how a website looks!

After years with a custom, hard-to-edit website, Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks needed a site that was easier to update and could offer more information to visitors.

Same Design. Custom Theme.

The website design they had was bold and distinctive. The organization didn’t feel the need to update it, so we didn’t! I built a custom WordPress theme with the same layout and look-and-feel. But under the hood, the site was totally different.

Now, editors could log into WordPress and edit or add new pages that used the site’s design. This unlocked the ability to post information about their popular summer tours, advocacy around park projects, and new online guided tours.

Bringing a map to life

Map of parks on the SeattleOlmsted.org website

The old website features detailed information about parks but was mostly behind a static map of Seattle.

Using the advanced content management features in WordPress, the new website supports a custom “Parks” content type that can be used to place parks on the map.

Working with board members with GIS experience, we worked together to create a new dynamic Google Map with park locations and shapes overlaid on Seattle. In the spirit of not changing the design, this new map still used the custom colors and styles of the previous site’s map image.

This new interface was newly interactive, but also more accessible and responsive, for better use by everyone regardless of how they accessed the map.

Getting More People in Parks with Interactive Tours

In 2024, as part of Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks continued relationship with MRW Web Design, we launched a new interactive tours feature. Starting with an existing tour of Seward Park, this phone-friendly, location-aware tour allows people to explore and follow the tour at their own pace any day of the year.

Park tour interface in a phone-size screen. The top 40% of the screen shows a map of Seward park with numerous markers and the bottom 60% shows a large old map image and tour introduction.

While the tour was technically available as a PDF for years, this new format makes the tour easier to use, more search-friendly, and up-to-date with changes to the park since the original PDF was created.

To learn more about the new tours feature, read “New mobile-friendly interactive park tours for a Seattle nonprofit.”