Willow Bridge Property Company
Multipage Corporate Website
Willow Bridge Property Company was founded in 1965 for the purpose of building and operating quality residential communities.
The need for experienced, professional apartment property management was recognized during these early years. In the process of managing their apartment development properties, they began attracting, training and organizing the nucleus of their present residential apartment property management group. Today, Willow Bridge Property Company is a leader and trend setter among property management companies. They are ranked the second largest property manager in the United States.
At the end of 2019, Willow Bridge Property Company (then known as Linclon Property Company) and LeaseLabs worked in partnership to rebrand the company and launch LincolnApts.com. Since then, the website has been referenced and looked upon as the gold standard for websites in the multifamily industry. In 2023, Lincoln Property Company rebranded and reached out to LeaseLabs to update their website to reflect their new branding and persona.
Project Type: Multipage Corporate Website
Project Scope: UX/UI Design, Responsive Web Design, Research & Analysis, Wireframing, Prototyping, Client Presentations
Tools Used: Sketch, InVision, JIRA, Adobe Suites
Goals & Objectives:
Refresh willowbridgepc.com - differentiate from their competitors
Maintain & elevate the established brand
Improve mobile user experience
Friendly & casual appearance - no corporate tone
Include micro-interactions and animations
Robust search functionality
Help increase user interactions, repeat visits or time on site
Branding
With the complete renaming of Willow Bridge ( fka Lincoln Property Company) came an entirely new set of brand guidelines. To update the website to suit a much more professional and clean look, we must first understand the comprehensive brand guidelines set by an external agency. Lots of care was placed into adapting so many intentional brand choices into a website for Willow Bridge and their new brand.
Research & Strategy
Personas
Due to Willow Bridge Property Company’s rich history and widespread reach within the multifamily industry, the demographic of visitors who will use this website is quite extensive. Working with the Vice President of Marketing and Communications, we identified three core groups to focus on while designing this site. A large number of the employees are female, and residents are also skewed female. With that knowledge we created three personas:
Competitors
With a deep understanding of our client and personas, it was equally important to understand their competitors. One of Willow Bridge’s primary goals was to stand apart from their competitors, so it was important to identify what set them apart.
User Flows
After reviewing the major competitors of Willow Bridge, I identified what others were doing well, and where there were opportunities to streamline experiences. I looked at key functionality features and identified multiple user flows that would be common, originating at the home page and ending with a lead or conversion.
Wireframes
Despite such an extensive corporate website with many goals, my intention was to keep things accessible yet also streamlined. Early explorations of home page layouts, navigation functionality, etc. were crucial in finding a way to include all the elements as well as make the process intuitive while still matching branding and client expectations.
Cross Team Collaboration
Developer Approval
Working with a dedicated developer to create high quality products is a standard LeaseLabs process for all web projects. For one as extensive as Willow Bridge, it was even more important to have consistent communication with our developers. A developer was present for every step of the design process. They attended client presentations, reviewed designs and provided feedback to ensure all layouts and functionality aligned with our CMS capabilities.
Tools like Invision were used to indicate animations and functionality, and having a standard 12-column desktop grid to follow helped me translate and organize these elements out neatly for mobile.
Animation &
Micro-Interactions
One of the goals for Willowbridgepc.com was to include animations and micro-interactions to boost engagement and draw attention. Being selective with my usage, I found opportunities to draw attention to certain sections of the site with elements like animated hover states for links and buttons, micro-interactions to guide functionality, and leading lines connecting sections of the site to accent taglines.
High Fidelity Prototype
Designed in sketch and uploaded to Invision, these static comps show the details that our developers followed to bring my designs to life. These are also used to present the designs to the client, as well as gather any potential feedback from them. Once the final product is built in staging and approved, the site is pushed live. You can view the final product below!
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