Better with Age, Revamping Kitsap Bank’s Digital Experience
About
Established in Port Orchard in 1908, Kitsap Bank is an independent and family-owned financial institution serving six Western Washington counties. It is one of the oldest locally-owned community banks in Washington State. In 2018, Kitsap Bank kicked off it’s 110th anniversary with a new brand.
Problem Overview
Kitsap Bank’s brand refresh caused a need for new everything — including a website that not only reflected the new brand, but solved the accessibility limitations and less-than-intuitive navigation on the former site. The bank’s annual report needed an upgrade as well. The once-convenient downloadable PDF format limited the Kitsap Bank team’s ability to create an engaging experience for its target audiences.
Services
Content Management Systems
Content Strategy
Design
Managed Hosting
User Experience
User Interface Design
Web Development
New Brand to Celebrate 110 Years
In 2018, Kitsap Bank was preparing to celebrate its 110th anniversary with a new brand. The bank wanted a digital experience that matched its superb in-person customer service so partnered with SiteCrafting to design a mobile-friendly website.
Website Accessibility
An important design and development consideration for the redesign was to design and test for Section 508 accessibility compliance utilizing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0 Level AA). Our team tested all aspects to ensure that all customers can access products and services on the website. This includes a contrast of colors on buttons and text and ease of navigation.
Updated Navigation
SiteCrafting conducted testing and held focus groups to inform the website’s navigation. Our UX team conducted tree-testing and first-click testing on the newly proposed IA. Overall, the IA tested successfully but also highlighted areas with low success rates. This early insight allowed us to rename those navigation items so that customers could find the information they were looking for.
Enhancing the Online Banking Experience
Proving that some things get better with age, Kitsap Bank’s new responsive website highlights their new brand and features streamlined content, a help center, easy-to-use online forms, and a new branch location finder. An upgraded CMS allows the marketing team to easily customize pages using flexible layouts which makes it possible to create pages in a variety of different formats.
Kitsap Bank’s Annual Report
Kitsap Bank came wanted to engage new audiences and capture community essence with its annual report. Together we asked, would it be possible to create a piece of content that generates excitement about the bank’s community work, raises awareness for its cutting-edge banking technology and engages new target markets?
Heritage and Heart
The answer was yes, we can. For the past four years, we helped turn these formerly dull PDFs into creative digital experiences that connect customers, share stories of community members impacted by the bank’s Causing Good Initiatives, and match Kitsap Bank’s superb customer service.
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