Portland Public Library
A Website Redesign Built Around The Community It Serves
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Portland Public Library serves students, families, researchers and local residents across the city. The website needed to match that reach, making programs, resources and events easy to find for everyone who relies on the library.Â
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Digital Silk redesigned the site with a focus on navigation, accessibility and a CMS the internal team could manage without outside help.Â
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Since the February 17, 2026 launch, average engagement time per active user is up 47.82%, engaged sessions per active user up 4.5% and average engagement time per session up 18.38%.Â
The Challenge
The content was there. Getting to it was the problem.
Launching A Standalone Brand
Programs, events and resources were difficult to surface. Visitors who did not know exactly what they were looking for often left without finding it.
Fragmented Navigation
The site had been built up over time without a clear structure. Moving between programs, collections and community offerings felt inconsistent.
Low Engagement
There was little guiding visitors toward relevant content. People could land on the site and leave without connecting with anything meaningful.
Accessibility Gaps
The site was not meeting a consistent standard across devices and user needs and that was a big problem for an institution that serves everyone.
CMS Limitations
Keeping content current required more effort than it should, limiting how quickly the team could respond to programming changes.
The Solution
We redesigned the site from the ground up, focusing on structure, accessibility, engagement and content management.
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User-Centric Information Architecture
We restructured the content around how visitors search and browse. We also simplified the navigation to work for users of all ages and technical comfort levels. -
Engagement-Focused UX Design
Our experts built clear pathways toward the actions that matter most, including event registration, resource exploration and program participation. We reworked content hierarchy to surface relevant offerings rather than bury them. -
Accessibility & Inclusive Design
We built accessibility into the design from the start. Our team improved layouts, readability and responsiveness to serve the full range of people the library works with. -
A CMS The Team Can Manage
A flexible CMS with modular components gives the library team control over events, updates and seasonal programming without depending on outside development support. -
Performance & QA
Our team improved load speed and responsiveness across devices. We completed full QA testing before launch.
The Results
Comparing February 17–March 23, 2026 to the previous period:
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+47.82%increase in average engagement time per active user
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+4.5%increase in engaged sessions per active user
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+18.38%increase in average engagement time per session
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