Church websites

The reigning monarchs of Hawaiʻi established the Cathedral of St. Andrew in 1862. It serves a multi-cultural community from its setting near Iolani Palace on the island of Oʻahu.

It was imperative (a) to help both parishioners and island visitors choose from a multitude of services, events, and announcements, and (b) for all to enjoy access to sermons, meditations, island history, and sacred art. Many congregants rely on this church website.

Visit them: TheCathedralOfStAndrew.org

Background

This web-development project began with valuable resources provided by the church:

• an ever-changing calendar of church services and special events
• an archive of written and photographic resources
• volunteers who really do show up for day-to-day-forever tasks like maintaining the calendar and posting new announcements

Some Cathedrals tend to become repositories of local history, over time. So, when some suggested that this website could be simplified if a lot of historical material were removed, we resisted.

The result shows that good organization, menus, and information hierarchy are enough to help visitors find their way. Many of the web pages are fairly rich with content, but it is presented in ways that make it easy to parse for the items of interest.

It was important to the church’s mission that the website speak to the interested public. But it also needed to serve the congregation and feel like an online version of their home church. It needed to be approachable, while also respecting the sanctity of the church, its message, and the culture of Hawaiʻi.

What we did for this church website:

• Major reorganization of both historical and contemporary content.
• Conceive and create art to support the theme of Episcopalian-Hawaiʻian unity — notably the feather kahili and crucifix in the banner composition, and the recurring Cathedral cross graphic with red ohiʻa lehua.
• Make the home page a hub, almost a kiosk, where high-priority items for the public and congregants are presented.
• Develop simple design elements to help visitors of many ages and cultures to find key content.
• Custom design key pages that otherwise might be confusing or overwhelming to help visitors find key content.
• Coordinate with church volunteers who maintain the changing announcements, schedules, sermons, and more.