A playful website
for young explorers

Adding brand impact to OERRR's website.

What I did

UX design
Visual design
Scope management
Design reviews

Partners

iO (development)
External agency (brand design)

Client

Natuurmonumenten
2024

IntroductionResearchUX/UIManaging scopeResultsNext steps

Introduction

A new colorful and playful branding was designed for OERRR by an external agency. The request was to design the implementation of the new brand on the existing website.

The goal

To improve the brand recognition of OERRR and make it stand out more from its parent brand Natuurmonumenten.

Additional constraints

Accessibility

All new designs should comply with the WCAG AA standard for contrast.

Planning

Stay within the implementation budget

Natuurmonumenten web

The OERRR website should remain a sub-website of Natuurmonumenten.

About OERRR

OERRR is the children's label of Natuurmonumenten, the largest nature preservation NGO in the Netherlands.

"OERRR turns every child into a nature protector.

With OERRR you discover how you can help nature and animals.

Join us on an unforgettable adventure in nature. Wherever you are, outside is OERRR."

-
OERRR brand promise

Research

Branding guidelines

Researched the branding, colors, fonts, and picked shapes that might work to function as decoration or content blocks.

Content inventory

Made inventory of current pages and elements to prioritize which should be redesigned first.

Challanges encountered

Not all proposed color combinations were suitable to use in a web environment due to contrast issues.

Design principle: appeal to the child within each user

An important element of the new brand is the inclusion of bold colors, organic shapes and a tone of voice that tries to apply to the inner child in each visitor of the website. I carried this over to the web with my designs.

Final design (homepage)

Logo

A logo in a splash, looking like it dropped into a puddle, present on every page to reinforce the brand.

Color

Four bold colors that represent the different elements of nature are used throughout the website.

Shapes

Organic shapes and decorations add a more nature-like look to the brand.

Fonts

A sans-serif font and a rough display font made a great combination for body text and headers.

UX/UI

I have worked closely with the OERRR marketing team to figure out how to apply the brand to the website. It took us multiple iterations to come to the final design. I experimented with various color schemes and shapes to get the best result.

Before (desktop)
Design iteration (desktop)
After (desktop)


The first iteration was percieved as too busy, because of the blob shape and the square image. I also improved the destinction between the primary / secondary button and added some playful elements around the photo that add depth to the block.

Playful lists

Lists are used to organize playing tips for children, trails, and other groups of content.

The original list design was very clean and white. Photos were hidden to save space, but this made the list quite boring and difficult to be inspired by.

To make it more playful, I added splashes of color in the type and behind the photos. I added the photos back into the list items and masked them with blob shapes from the brand.

Before
After

Accessibility

While picking out colors for the content blocks I evaluated them for legibility using the WCAG AA standard. Not all bright colors from the brand book were compatible with this standard, so it took some iterations to get to the right combinations.

Before
iteration
Final design

Managing scope

Together with the front-end developer from iO and the OERRR marketing team, I managed the scope for the implementation of the branding. To keep the scope limited, I used existing CMS elements and discussed implementation possibilities with the front-end developers before proposing them to the marketing team.

MOSCOW

I organized a MOSCOW session with the OERRR team to prioritize implementation.

In this way, the team was involved and was enabled to give feedback before the planning was made.

Results

“Roel collaborated with us in a pleasant and efficient manner during the restyling of OERRR.nl.
His designs seamlessly combined existing elements with the renewed house style, resulting in a fresh, new look for our website.”
- Stefan Plugge (Marketeer, team OERRR)
Final design (landing page)

Next steps

For OERRR the next steps could include:

  • Measure brand recognition after release of this redesign.
  • Further develop the OERRR online brand by redesigning navigation, trail maps and event listings for children focused activities.

Reach out

Roel van der Kraan
UX/UI designer
Contact
Threads
LinkedIn

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