Durham County
UX Strategy | UX Design | Website Development | Accessibility
Durham County is a vibrant and diverse community known for its rich history, innovative spirit, and thriving economy. Home to more than 330,000 residents, it offers a high quality of life with access to a wide range of services, including public health, environmental management, social services, and regional transportation.
Durham County came to Northwoods looking for more than a website redesign. They needed a trusted partner who could help them rethink their entire digital experience from the ground up.
The Situation
- Residents struggled to find what they needed on Durham County’s previous website, contending with confusing navigation, unreliable search functionality, and an overall user experience that fell well short of expectations.
- A large volume of outdated, fragmented content was spread across seven different websites, all of which needed to be consolidated, updated, and migrated to a single, unified platform.
- The County needed to improve accessibility across its website, including PDFs and other documents, and close significant gaps before compliance deadlines.
- The website called for a multilingual experience built for Durham County’s diverse community, going beyond just mirroring content across English and Spanish pages.
The Solution
- Following 20 focus groups and extensive user research, Northwoods completely redesigned the site's navigation, search functionality, and overall user experience, resulting in a more intuitive structure and improved content organization.
- Our team migrated over 500 pages of content, working closely with Durham County to determine what to keep, archive, or restructure, and we trained more than 100 content authors to ensure the website was properly maintained going forward.
- Providing an accessible website has improved the experience for all users, and the County now has a clear path forward for avoiding and addressing compliance gaps in the future.
- Northwoods integrated a translation solution (G-Translate) to deliver a seamless multilingual experience, eliminating the need for separate English and Spanish pages.
- We also helped Durham County implement a chatbot to improve self-service and responsiveness for constituents.
Mobile Design
Rounded edges replace sharp corners throughout the interface, creating a softer, more inviting feel that makes it easier for residents to navigate and explore county resources. This subtle design choice enhances readability and makes the website feel more approachable.
The User Experience & Design
The homepage opens with a hero video that captures the spirit and energy of Durham County, giving visitors an immediate sense of place and community before they dive in.
On a government website, a prominent search bar isn't a nice-to-have. It's essential. Residents arrive with specific needs, whether they're looking for permit information, upcoming events, or department contact details. The Durham County website search bar is deliberately set apart through bold color blocking, giving it the visual prominence it deserves so residents can get to what they need without a second thought.
Northwoods designers chose a bold, vibrant color palette to reflect the energy and diversity of the Durham community. Government websites tend to play it safe visually, but this one embraces color with confidence, giving the site a personality that feels as dynamic as the county it represents.
Government websites are also notorious for being dense and hard to navigate, but this one makes finding what you need feel effortless. Content is broken into clearly defined sections, each with its own visual weight and purpose. Card layouts, chunked navigation, and refined hover effects make it easy to scan, find, and act, so residents spend less time hunting and more time getting things done.
The Outcome
- The redesigned navigation and search experience delivered measurable results, with a 31% decrease in time spent on search pages, showing residents can find what they need faster and with less frustration.
- Training 100+ content authors paid off, with Durham County now confidently managing and maintaining their content with very few issues arising post-launch.
- The accessibility audit confirmed the main website met compliance standards, a significant improvement over the previous site, with a clear path forward for addressing remaining PDF gaps.
- Northwoods earned Durham County's trust as a long-term partner, delivering a digital experience that better serves over 330,000 residents and positions the county for continued growth.