The Association of Average Adjusters are a professional membership organisation. They operate in the international marine and insurance industries.

Bigfork have a long-standing relationship with Association, and they appointed us to create their new website.

The Association had a membership database that they maintained in Microsoft Access. At the same time, the website was being used more for memberships, but the two never connected. A key goal for the new website was to improve its membership capabilities and make it the definitive database.

As well as this, the new website needed to support existing members and sell the Association to potential members.

The main objectives for the new website were:

• Redevelop the membership database including member management and reports.
• Improve the processes for online applications, renewing subscriptions, and booking events / exams
• A new design that positioned the Association of Average Adjusters as a high-quality professional organisation
• Restructure the website to make it more intuitive and useful for members

Membership database

The Association's membership model has very specific functionality. As such, it wouldn’t have suited an off-the-shelf system. So instead, a bespoke digital product was the best approach as it:

• Gave them exactly what they needed rather than trying to force an existing to fit
• Integrated with the website functionality including subscriptions, exam bookings, and event bookings
• Wouldn’t mean paying for unused features
• Has no extra costs for seat licenses or increased usage in future

Bigfork designed and developed the new web-based system in-house, and it includes:

• Membership database management
• Reporting (custom and pre-defined reporting templates)
• Subscription management
• Exam booking management
• Event booking management

This has enabled the Association to stop using their Access database, and only use the website, which:

• Saves time on managing data in two different places
• Removes issues with data being out of sync
• Reduces admin overhead by allowing members to do more
• Allowed us to create custom reports for common admin functions

Website design

As always, the most important part of any website design was the planning.

We started with a full website review to see how we could make it more useful to existing members. We also thought about how it better sell the Association to people with an interest in joining.

Our main discovery was the existing website had sprawled out over time, like many websites do. As such the website had become hard to navigate. We worked with the Association to restructure the website into a logical format, so it was easy to find information

The new design reduced the amount of content on each page to make it easier to digest. It also introduced photography for visual appeal. They had professional shots taken which look great and are

Lastly, we made sure the website highlighted key benefits of becoming an AAA member. Including their industry-famous annual dinner, which for many members is the reason they join or renew.

User experience

As well as an improved website structure, we made sure to provide a good user experience (UX) across the board. We introduced a lot of new and improved features including:

• “Mega-menus” to make finding content even easier
• Strong calls to action throughout
• A search bar with auto-suggest to avoid users seeing “no results found”
• Redesigning all forms to make them clear and intuitive
• On-page payments rather than a cart system, as our research showed most people only paid for one thing at a time