Washington Youth Soccer (WYS) ranks among the most highly regarded youth sports programs in the country and counts soccer legends like Michelle Akers, Deandre Yedlin, and Jordan Morris, among its alumni. Having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, the organization was looking to reimagine its online presence, delivering a more contemporary and user-friendly website experience.
To do it, they partnered with 1205 Marketing. Our team worked with the organization’s key stakeholders to design and develop a 300+ page website reflecting its rich history as Washington’s leading youth soccer body. That started with rethinking the site’s information architecture, describing the user experience with detailed wireframes, and creating high-definition mockups they conveyed the updated site’s revised look and feel.
Client: Washington Youth Soccer
Services: Design, Digital
Services:Graphic Design, Visual Design, Website Dev
Legacy organizations often develop large bodies of informational content over time and Washington Youth Soccer was no different. With hundreds of supporting documents and offsite resources, the club needed a way to deliver these documents to each audience in an easily navigable way. That started with a deep dive into how its members arrived at and used the site.
The 1205 team worked with WYS department heads to understand what the most important information was and delivered a site taxonomy that more closely aligned with the organization’s core mission. The resulting information architecture better communicated the Washington Youth Soccer’s core programs including elite player development, leagues, tournament play, and coaching, as well as telling the story of its community involvement and leadership.
As technology has evolved, so has the way players and families engage the organization’s website. Like most, WYS has seen a dramatic shift towards mobile traffic and visitors expected a well thought out small-screen experience – one that lets them easily consume information, download various documents, find local clubs, and get in touch with the organization’s leadership on the go.
Stylistically, our goal was to add color and context to WYS’ story with a website that felt engaging, dynamic, and contemporary. For the Washington Youth Soccer team, it was important that the design convey a sense motion that represented both the players and the organization’s evolution as a leading voice in the development of youth soccer programs nationwide.
To do that, the 1205 visual design team used forward-leaning geometric styling to convey motion. Cutouts of players helped create a layered, multi-dimensional effect while CSS menu and button animations created unique action elements on every page. Combined, these elements help tell the story of a leading organization at play.
As we moved into development, the WYS team had several objectives. They including ensuring quick site load times, access to organizational resources across all devices, and most importantly, that managers had the ability to access and work with the site’s content without assistance from a developer.
Over the course of eight weeks, Our team worked to deliver a custom coded and mobile-optimized website using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and JQueary on the WordPress CMS. To make this managable on a long term basis, our team used a theme builder that allowed WYS contributors to easily replace written, graphic, and video content in a matter of seconds, anywhere on the site.
The Washington Youth Soccer website launched in Mid-October to very positive feedback from the organization’s board of directors, families, and partner organizations.
