CORA Trail Map
Overview
Cincinnati Off-road Alliance (CORA) is a non-profit group that supports trail building efforts for recreation. In 2019 I redesigned a site for CORA to encourage donations for their projects, and to give their users essential information about local trails. We focused on making the trail status tools to drive traffic to their site and to ensure that it serves a practical purpose.
Approach
Through a survey, we identified users access the CORA website primarily to access up-to-date trail status information. This is an important tool for trail users, because outdoor recreation in the Midwest is seasonal and the trails are in fact closed for a portion of the winter months due to cold weather and soil with a heavy clay composition. CORA also needed to promote their current efforts to apply for future grants, as well as increase donations to the organization through the site.
Results
Process
CORA board members including two communications specialists, and a web developer acted as partners to bring the website to fruition. Their historical knowledge of the audience and maintenance of trails guided the design process, ensuring the feature is usable and effective for its audience.
Obstacles
CORA is a non-profit almost entirely run by volunteers. The maintenance of the trail status on the map feature is dependent on volunteer trail stewards checking on the conditions of the trail, then changing it's status through a reporting tool which then changes the status on the website. Because the conditions at each trail site are very different from one another, the effectiveness of the tool is still largely dependent on volunteers or people using the trail to report it's status.
Overall Impact
CORA’s new website design and its new features resulted in an increase in site traffic and routine use because of the useful tools we provided for checking trail conditions*. CORA's average monthly new users were 955 before the launch.
In 2020 with the release of the new website, they are averaging 3,086 new users monthly, a 233% increase in new users for one year.