Botanic Gardens of Sydney – Website Redevelopment

A significant driver for this piece of work was the consolidation of the three garden websites and one campaign microsite into a single, unified web experience. The previous sites had created significant duplication of content and inhibited cross-promotion or natural navigation across the different garden locations. Folk was engaged to transform the digital presence of the gardens into a single site that would promote the best of the gardens. Importantly, ensuring the website is fit for purpose in attracting visitors to the gardens, sharing knowledge, and support efficient processes and practices for staff.

Folk consulted with internal stakeholders and external users of the site, used the bright and expressive colour palette from the newly developed brand identity to its full effect, improved the navigation and content structure of the website. The redesigned templates allows content editors to select a huge variety of colours that match or contrast with the real gardens, helping to maintain the individual personalities of the four gardens. The NSW Digital Design system was the foundation of the design, allowing Folk to utilise accessible components and patterns, and further build upon them to reflect the beauty of the gardens.

The science, plants and learn areas of the prior site were mostly ignored, with intention focused on the practical tasks, resulting in a transactional website. The website now successfully balances information about science, horticulture, education, events, venues, and the purpose and foundation of the Gardens, and allows visitors to browse. This results in more informed and educated visitors, who are more likely to invest in visiting the physical garden sites, converting from transactional to actionable. Physical visits grow funding that can be reinjected into caring and cultivating the gardens and supports the future legacy of the Gardens.

Like a garden, a website is a complex ecosystem that needs to be maintained and cared for, but the user doesn’t need to see that. They need to get to the content that solves their problems and is beautiful, as quickly as possible. Folk’s content strategy aimed to encourage people to explore and learn, by creating a site structure that grouped the content for each garden under sections that spoke to user needs and wants By flipping the content model and simplifying entry points to information, the website now encourages users to explore and learn about everything the Botanic Gardens of Sydney offers through content cross-navigation. Folk supported the Gardens with the copywriting for the new website, aiding them to move away from duplicated content across the three garden websites into one single experience, and builds on the narrative of the gardens being a meeting place for people to learn, grow and explore. The first nations and heritage of the Gardens has been brought forward through the content and design, the navigation is no longer disorganised, search problems are resolved, and users of the website can now more easily find important and relevant information.