Summary
The story of cable television cannot be told without Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN). With its roots in the proliferation of cable TV across the country, PCN has a rich history of providing Pennsylvanians with access to unbiased political coverage, in-depth segments about historical sites across the state, and telecasting PIAA sports championships.
As cable TV viewership began to decline, PCN recognized the need for an alternate way to access their content, leading to the creation of a proprietary online streaming platform called PCN Select. However, this introduced a problem for the network's primary website, pcntv.com — the website had begun to serve as both a representation of the organization itself and a distribution hub for their new streaming content. This led to a single online presence with conflicting priorities.
Recognizing an opportunity to refine how the network shows up on the web, PCN leadership sought our help to redesign their primary website.
Services
- Content Strategy
- Design Refresh
- Information Architecture
- Website Development
Objective & Approach
Setting Goals for the Project
The PCN website had been the home of organizational content, streaming videos, news updates, educational content, and even an e-commerce store for many years. This resulted in an overgrown website without a clear purpose.
We consulted with PCN to identify these goals for the project:
- Highly organized content and navigation
- Emphasis on driving traffic to PCN Select
- Adherence to modern web best practices
- Refreshed design that evolves the PCN visual identity
Prioritizing Content Categories
Our work began with a guided workshop to rank the priority levels of each piece of content on the old website.
This wealth of content had served various purposes, was owned by different stakeholders, and had varying levels of visibility, so it was important to judiciously determine the priority of each content category. To better collaborate with PCN, we ranked content in a table within Figma based on four priority levels. Eventually, some content was eliminated altogether in the spirit of our goal to maintain a high level of organization across the website.
From there, we decided on the information architecture itself, establishing top-level, secondary, and tertiary pages and menu items.
Determining the Stylistic Direction
Our design team created two design system options for the website, pulling from the organization’s previous visual identity and refining its tone for better clarity and a more distinct character. Both stylistic directions lent a contemporary touch to the brand, but after consulting with long-time stakeholders at PCN, our first option pictured here was chosen to best match the nature and values of the organization.
Once a direction was chosen, we refined details like font scale, button styles, and a full color palette, codifying the complete UI design system in a guidelines document.
We worked closely with PCN’s web development team for this project, so it was imperative that every aspect of the new website’s design was accurately summarized in a single location.
Aligning Content With PCN’s New Vision
Care was taken during the development stage of the project to modify the website’s content to fit PCN’s new vision for their online presence. Our internal team worked closely with PCN to refine their editorial voice, determine consistent standards, and ensure the content of each page could be represented optimally with the website’s design system.
lift in referring traffic to PCN’s streaming website
Conclusion
The organization and clarity of PCN's new website has allowed for a refocused purpose and new intentionality in their online presence. They now have a framework for current and future content, and the design has already informed how their visual identity is applied to other branded materials. Perhaps most importantly, the network's streaming website, PCN Select, has seen a 17% lift in referring traffic from pcntv.com, signaling a successful restructuring of pcntv.com's content to better serve its audience.