Trade & Invest BC

November 2012 – April 2013

Note: All work products for this project are protected under NDA. For more details, please contact me directly.

The Project

Trade & Invest BC is the province of British Columbia’s official international trade and investment marketing website. When the Trade & Invest BC team approached Number 41 Media, it was clear that the existing website was not putting British Columbia’s best foot forward to the international community. Number 41 Media conducted a complete redesign of the website, including a simplified and drastically improved information architecture with new and engaging content, all based on the results of stakeholder research sessions.

Joining this project immediately following the conclusion of stakeholder research, I had to get up to speed on both the project and the subject matter in a hurry. From here, I was responsible for applying the research findings to the development of a new information architecture as well as entirely new content for the entire site.

Information Architecture

In order to best satisfy the needs of three very distinct user groups – investors, exporters, and importers – the IA for Trade & Invest BC included three very distinct subsites – Invest, Export and Buy – along with a global About section. Across these subsites, similarities existed to maintain a cohesive look and feel across the entire site while allowing for variances according the stakeholder research findings. These subsites focused solely on providing practical trade and investment information and services to the users while the About section was reserved for information about Trade & Invest BC as an organization.

In addition to developing an information architecture for the main Trade & Invest BC website, I was also responsible for adapting it to three min-information architectures for the localized, in-language subsites for Japan, Korea and China.

Content

Incorporating a drastic change from an audience-ambivalent IA to an audience-specific IA required an equally drastic shift in the website’s content. Targeting one of three audiences, brand new content was written for each subsite as well as for the global About section. Existing content was re-used when it made sense to do so, but the majority of the final content was either significantly adapted or brand new. The final result was finely targeted and highly engaging content for three very different user groups that was unified through structure and tone.