A new look for a Liverpool institution

Just like Bill himself, The Shankly is something of an institution in Liverpool. Known for their eccentric decor and extravagant group rooms, this hotel needed a new look to match and temper their reputation. What started as a website spanned into a full rebrand: but here, we’ll just focus on their online presence.

Their old site was as cluttered as a hotel room after a hen do: to navigate it, users had to carefully pick their path through the chaos. This isn’t the elegant user journey you want on a site where the desired outcome is a booking, so we started by streamlining that process.

We went for a three-pronged approach: when entering the site, users were given the simple choice of “Stay”, “Dine” or “Celebrate”. This had the benefit of informing audiences looking for party rooms that The Shankly offered weddings and dining, and vice versa. From here, “Stay” diverged into “Rooms & Suites” and “Party Rooms”, covering the bases from the family-orientated and business guests, to the party-seeking fare The Shankly usually attracts.

Another issue with their site was device compatibility. Most users were accessing a site not designed for mobiles… on their mobile. So, we prioritised this traffic by updating the site, leaving our client with a product that worked seamlessly on phones. We actually worked on this feature before laptop and tablet compatibility, knowing it was how the majority of guests were browsing the site.