I've been a member of the Anime Boston community since 2017 when I attended my first convention, even becoming a volunteer in recent years as a member of the support squad.
Despite its status as New England's largest anime convention Anime Boston's website has remained relatively unchanged from ~2013. Being vastly outmoded by many of the websites of other conventions across the country. Being entirely volunteer run resources can often be spread thin across the convention's organization. Leading to a lack of urgency to improve the visuals of the website and bring it in line with the modern style sites used by its competitors. Through selective changes and visual overhauls to key pages the Anime Boston website can be refreshed bringing a new digital face to the convention providing use for the next decade of the conventions operation.
With a cluttered and confusing nav menu, it is very easy to get lost trying to find a specific page on the Anime Boston site. Oftentimes multiple links will direct to one page or to empty pages with their contents hidden. An overhaul to the sitemap and navigation elements is needed to improve the usability of the site and to keep it competitive with other conventions. Starting by reducing the number of sections from 12 to 8, merging similar sections such as "Programming", "Cosplay", and "Artists" merging into one general "Programming" section. Greatly clears screen clutter. To reduce visitor overload while navigating directly accessible pages will be reduced to manageable numbers as well through removing many duplicate links and creating landing pages for the "FAQ", "Policies", and "Cosplay" sections. With this the number of website sections can be reduced by 40% and the number of pages under them will be reduced by nearly 50%. Allowing for a cleaner navigation menu and more condensed access to the information already available.
The current iteration of Anime Boston's homepage is barebones and acts as a poor ambassador for the convention by not showcasing what makes Anime Boston unique. It forgets to include much of what a visitor would come to expect when visiting a homepage, such as convention information or branding for the convention itself. Most glaringly however is the absence of a call to action to register for the convention, even if registration isn't open including a space for registration lets visitors know they can soon.
Through this redesign several changes were made to rectify these issues, and improve the overall quality of the webpage. Starting off a visual pass was conduct on the homepage incorporating much of the beautiful graphics and art created by Anime Boston's art department. Featuring the mascots A-Chan and B-Kun directly on the homepage of the convention and putting the date of the convention in a larger and more prominent spot so its the first thing visitors see when they open the webpage. To better facilitate pass sales a permanent call to action button was added for registering for passes. Bringing the button into a prominent location on the homepage while also adding in quick access to reserving hotel rooms for the con weekend and a quick way to access the ever important convention schedule. Anime Boston isn't just art and registration buttons there is so much more that makes its special and that information is important to showcase as well. Through a featured guest showcase, mission statement, and sponsor listings visitors this information can be conveyed all while reinforcing the registration C2A by providing visitors opportunities to learn more about what makes Anime Boston special.
Recognizing the constraints of being an all volunteer organization, efforts were made to stick mostly to visual changes and keeping the copy across the site unchanged. Aside from some minor changes to outdated pages most information was retained from the current version into the redesign. Across the site every page got a facelift with the new navigation elements and a newly styled footer. Through the strategic use of text coloring, headlines and headers were given visually distinct indicators to better improve browsing on text heavy pages. Especially the FAQ and Policy pages. Improvements were also made to various list pages, improving the readability of the Dealers and Artist Alley listings through better formatting of their tables. The guest listing page was also updated to align with the new headshot display style shown on the homepage.
Overall the redesign of the Anime Boston website has been incredibly well received by the members of the Anime Boston community that have seen it. The general sentiment from those that have seen the redesign is that they wish this could be Anime Boston's official site.
...design looks amazing. I'm only mad we don't have this website right now!
- Ross Hurlock - Support Squad Assistant Manager
Wait I just saw this web design. why is this so much better than our website?
- Allison Alder - Support Squad Manager
