Parks Fly Shop

Context

Parks Fly Shop, an established fly shop and outfitter in Gardiner, MT, has been serving customers since 1953. Located on the edge of Yellowstone National Park, they offer guided tours, casting lessons, and a well-stocked shop with fly fishing gear and rentals.

However, their digital presence was outdated, operating on a cumbersome C-Panel with hard-to-read text and confusing navigation. To address this, they sought out Media Proper to completely revamp their website.

Timeframe

3 months

Role

UX/UI Design

Visual/Brand Design

Team

Client

Development Team

Project Manager

Tools

Figma
Photoshop
Wordpress

Problem to solve

How might we redesign the website to communicate Parks Fly Shop's rich history and its robust services & resources?

Solution preview

A redesign of the website with clear navigation, strong call-to-action for guided tours, and thoughtful messaging to highlight the rich history.

Jump to final design ↓View Figma prototype

Discovery & Research

From the in-depth client interview, we discovered several pain points of the site & identified the specific needs of the target audience.

Pain Points

Confusing website navigation structure led to:

Difficulty discovering booking widgets for guided tours.
Hard to find information on rivers.

Poor visuals & lack of branding led to:

Sparse conversion from online visitors.
Relying heavily on word-of-mouth and connections.

Target Audience

Potential Customers

Excited to visit Yellowstone & Montana and looking for outdoor adventures.

Goal:

To find exciting and fun outdoor adventure.

Need:

To book a guided tour easily on the website.

Experienced Anglers

Looking to visit the website to gain expert information on river conditions in Yellowstone & Montana.

Goal:

To gain knowledge on river conditions.

Need:

To easily find river reports on the website.

Competitive Research

Conducted analysis of how the competitors communicate their brands & offerings. Effective strategies included:

Vivid photos that capture moments & landscapes.
Clear navigation structure and CTA for booking tours
Persuasive & consistent language throughout the site
Detailed fishing reports that build credibility of the guides & business

Information Architecture & wireframes

Building upon the research, I redefined the navigation structure and created low- & mid-fi wireframes for finalizing copy and layout.

Navbar included a CTA button to book a trip. Several CTA banners and 'more guided trips' sections maximized opportunities for converting users (convincing potential customers to send in contact form).

Challenges

The mega menu, booking feature, & fishing reports required creative design solutions and multiple iterations with the development team.

Mega Menu

To maximize the opportunities for the users to find the booking guided tours page, I designed a mega menu with embedded cards with CTAs.

The challenge was implementing the mega menu with WordPress's newest full-site editor. The dev team wanted to reduce the reliance on mega menu plugins as much as possible.

I designed both simple and complex options. Fortunately, with WordPress's latest update for the built-in mega menu block, we were able to implement the more complex design.

Booking Feature

Collaborated with the Origin Plugin - jumped on several calls with the dev team at Origin to understand the capability of the booking widget and how to integrate it on the website.

I was able to create a customized widget with a half & full-day toggle with a simple short code.

Fishing Reports Page

Although fishing reports do not directly persuade user to book guided trips, they establish a sense of trust and expertise for the business and for the guides.

We went through several iterations to determine the best solution for various data integrations.

My role was to understand the development team's limitations and find the optimal placement for the weather data, interactive map, and USGR flow chart.

*All competitor sites featured fishing reports written by their own guides. Parks Fly Shop aimed to stay competitive by providing detailed fishing reports as well to build their reputation, credibility, and market competitiveness.

Final designs

Redesigned the website with clear navigation, strong call-to-action, powerful imagery, and thoughtful messaging.

Go to Live Website View Figma prototype

Homepage: Redesign with clear navigation, strong call-to-action, and thoughtful messaging.

Guided Trips Page: Improved organization for scannability, easy-to-use booking widget, and strong CTAs.

Fishing Reports Pages: Establishing expertise & trust and designing for static & dynamic data.

Walk-through of the Parks Fly Shop Figma Prototype

Check out the launched website: Go to parksflyshop.com →

Check out Figma redesigns: View Figma Prototype →

Further thoughts

Communication – both internal and external – was crucial for a successful design process and launch. Engaging with the client to understand the context, competition, market, and pain points was essential for addressing user needs and goals. Moreover, understanding the technical possibilities with Plugin integration, interactive map integration, and weather data integration was important in designing screens that can be actualized by the dev team.
Annotating final designs with detailed spacing, typography, and colors also proved to be immensely valuable in communicating the designs. Improving upon documenting handoff with consistent language is an area I want to work on to ensure a smoother & easier development process.

Parks Fly Shop Website Redesign

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