The University of Wisconsin Press (UW Press) approached ReaderBound with a clear vision. It was time to modernize and streamline the press website. And the team saw an opportunity to bring the two major streams in the Wisconsin publishing program—books and journals—together in an integrated site.
The press had been operating separate websites: one for books and one for journals, as well as an external blog. All three sites were out of date. They were not responsive across desktop and mobile devices, and nor were they compliant with contemporary accessibility standards. As older sites, they were also challenging to maintain and took up more staff time than they should have.
The challenge and—the opportunity!—was to bring everything together in a new, high-performing site that would leverage the power of metadata to open up new ways for readers to explore the combined UW Press catalog and simultaneously launch a long-awaited rebrand for the press.
Supercharging discovery
The University of Wisconsin Press was founded in 1936. It publishes books of general interest (biography, fiction, memoir, natural history, poetry, travel and field guides, etc.); scholarly books (African studies, classics, film, gender & sexuality studies, modern European history, Scandinavian studies, folklore, Jewish studies, Slavic studies, Southeast Asian studies, human rights, etc.); and regional books about Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest. UW Press also publishes distinguished works in translation and thirteen peer-reviewed academic journals in the humanities and social sciences, many of which overlap with UW Press’s book publishing program.
UW Press staff expressed several goals for the new website. Increasing book sales (including ebooks), boosting journal subscriptions and individual issue sales, enhancing and streamlining key user experiences around navigating and purchasing, improving in-house workflows, and building brand awareness.
Many of these goals centre around discoverability. We immediately started working on carefully planning out the site architecture, structure of title listing pages and other key templates, catalog categorization, and strengthening the incoming ONIX data.
The new site leads with a contemporary, streamlined user interface. Menus are elegant and intuitive. The homepage is carefully curated. Purchasing behaviour is integrated with UW Press’ partners at the Chicago Distribution Center for both print and ebook fulfillment. Open Access books, a growing area of emphasis for the press, are much more prominent. The end result is that the outstanding work done by the UW Press team and their authors is much more effectively showcased for readers, scholars, and other key stakeholders.
Integrating the journals division
UW Press prides itself on the boutique, hands-on nature of their journals program, supported by dedicated and passionate staff. Journals editors are accustomed to excellent marketing support from UW Press and the new site had to make browsing and subscribing to journals a seamless experience.
The new site brings journals into the main UW Press site and gives journals pride of place in site navigation and discovery. Purchasing is done directly through UW Press and fulfilled in-house with a custom payment integration. Customers can now subscribe for themselves or their institution and learn how to purchase advertising, publish with the press, and more.
Launching with a bang
Alongside our website redevelopment process, UW Press staff worked with the Madison-based design studio Distillery to refresh their brand identity. The timing of that process meant that we were able to incorporate the lively new brand package into the new site for what was essentially the public launch of the new brand.
The dynamic colour palette, patterns, and logo demonstrate a fresh and exciting new direction for the press. “I've been eager to see a refresh of our website and branding for nearly a decade,” says UW Press Director Dennis Lloyd. “I’m very excited not only to share our new vision with the world but also to be working with such a talented group of people, inside and outside of the organization, who were able to make this happen.”
UW Press’ commitment to their publishing program, to art and design, to the people of Wisconsin, and to sharing ideas with readers around the world is evident on every page of the site. Opportunities for growth beckon: the press has already embarked on exciting new sales and marketing initiatives such as building out specialized landing pages and discount codes for scholarly conferences and events.
“Our new site offers a major step forward in improving the online experience for our many key audiences as well as a flexible, scalable, and dynamic foundation for future growth on the back end,” says Sales and Marketing Manager Casey LaVela.
