Modernizing Municipal Knowledge: Service Design & CMS Transformation

Emery County Library System

Empowering Lifelong Learning

UX Research Craft CMS Branding
New Brand Identity: Strengthening community trust through design.

Building a Gateway for Lifelong Learning

The Emery County Library System (ECLS) serves as a vital community hub for connection and education. However, their digital presence had become a bottleneck for both staff and patrons.

I led the transformation of the ECLS web ecosystem, evolving it from a static repository of PDF newsletters into a dynamic, branch-managed platform. By combining **Service Design thinking** with a modern **Craft CMS** architecture, we empowered staff across multiple branches to own their digital narratives.

Project Year: 2022

Bridging the "PDF Gap"

The primary service hurdle was that branch staff could only communicate through static PDF uploads. Our solution replaced this outdated workflow with a unified CMS ecosystem, allowing for real-time updates and localized community news across all branches.

Capabilities Applied:

  • UX Strategy
  • Heuristic Evaluation
  • Information Architecture
  • Branding & UI Design
  • Web Development
  • Staff Workflow Training

The Strategic Narrative

To ensure long-term sustainability, we moved beyond just a "website redesign" and focused on the **authoring experience**:

  1. Systems Audit & SWOT: Performed a deep-dive heuristic review and code audit of the existing site, alongside a SWOT analysis of neighboring library systems to identify competitive opportunities.
  2. Integrated Branding: Created a new branding kit and style tiles to strengthen the organization's vision and foster deeper community trust.
  3. Architecture for Two Audiences: Developed two distinct Information Architectures—one for Patrons (focused on discovery) and one for Staff/Admin (focused on streamlined content publishing).
  4. Staff Empowerment: Delivered comprehensive workflow training, HTML templates, and a digital style guide, ensuring the library team could manage the site independently.
The Technical Toolbox
  • Engine: Craft CMS
  • Frontend: Bootstrap 5 / Vanilla JS
  • Design: Figma / OmniGraffle
  • DevOps: DDEV / Docker / Git

Leveraging Craft CMS allowed us to create custom fields tailored specifically to library branch events, eliminating the need for manual PDF formatting.

Outcome & Impact:

Zero-Barrier Publishing

Staff across all 8 branches can now post local news and events directly, increasing transparency and community engagement.

Sustained Independence

The client has successfully maintained and updated the site internally since launch, requiring zero ongoing technical oversight from external agencies.

See this project on the web!