Visit Norway Website Design

Create Your First Project

Start adding your projects to your portfolio. Click on "Manage Projects" to get started

Visit Norway Website Design

Role

Senior Interactive Designer - Simpleview

Goal

Create an immersive digital experience that inspires and informs global travelers while showcasing the natural beauty and cultural richness of Norway. The design needed to balance aesthetic impact with functional clarity—providing users with practical travel information in a visually compelling and easy-to-navigate format.

Insights

• Navigation: intentionally kept minimal—functional but unobtrusive—to keep the focus on content.
• Mobile Optimization: The design adapts seamlessly to smaller screens, maintaining visual impact and usability.
• Design aesthetic is functional minimalism, focusing on simplicity and utility.

Awards

• 2016 HSMAI Adrian Awards – Gold
• 2016 Skift List: The 25 Best Tourism Websites in the World
• Official Shortlist in The 6th Annual Lovie Awards in the Web: Travel/Tourism category

.....................................................

Our strategy was to bring the breathtaking landscape and distinctive visual identity of Norway to the forefront through design. We drew inspiration from Norwegian photography—clean compositions and minimalist framing—to inform a layout that feels both expansive and grounded.

Key UX principles guided the design process: simplicity, clarity, and accessibility.

Having the initial prototypes affirmed through moderated user testing, the final site - post launch, has proven to be an enormous success with increased visitation of more than 20 million website visitors annually.

This was my first global project, and it came with the unique challenges of working across an eight-hour time difference and navigating language barriers. To ensure smooth collaboration, I focused on clear, asynchronous communication—sending detailed design rationales, annotated wireframes, and interactive prototypes at the end of my workday in Arizona. This approach gave the Norwegian stakeholders time to review the 33 design comps thoughtfully and provide feedback during their working hours, creating a productive, around-the-clock design cycle.

Image of Norway Home Page on multiple browsers, desktop, tablet and mobile

Visit Norway Homepage Design

The hero image serves as the user's first visual interaction with the site. By featuring a breathtaking Norwegian landscape, it immediately immerses visitors into the destination's allure. This aligns with the principle of using high-impact visuals to captivate users and encourage exploration. The image's composition and quality are crucial in setting the tone and enticing users to delve deeper into the content.

Image of homepage wireframes across desktop, tablet and mobile device

Wireframes - Homepage

Recognizing that a significant portion of users access websites via mobile devices, the design prioritizes a mobile-first approach. This ensures that navigation, content readability, and interactive elements are seamlessly accessible on smaller screens. Such optimization enhances user satisfaction and engagement, reducing bounce rates and fostering longer site visits.

Image of a Listing page wireframe and final design in tablet view.

Things to Do Listing Page

To bring the best of Norway to the Things to Do landing page, the experience needed to be clean, intuitive, and accessible for a global audience. We prioritized a layout that supports effortless exploration—incorporating pinnable images for visual inspiration, integrated TripAdvisor reviews for social proof, and easy-to-use filters that empower users to discover and save activities to their wishlist with confidence.

image of the open search experience on desktop.

Open Search Experience - Desktop

The open search experience is designed to guide users with both relevance and clarity. By surfacing related links alongside a large, visually prominent primary suggestion, users are quickly oriented toward the most likely match—reducing friction and decision fatigue. From a UX standpoint, this approach balances discovery and direction, ensuring users feel supported and in control as they explore content intuitively.

Activity Detail Page

This page balances visual impact with practical information, using a bold hero image to draw users in while surfacing essential details—like opening hours, pricing, and ticket perks—above the fold. The tabbed layout (Overview/Details) supports content digestion at a glance, making it easy for global travelers to understand key logistics and plan their visit with confidence.

Footer Design - Desktop

The footer brings key information, navigation links, and sponsor recognition directly to the visitor’s fingertips. Consistent with the site's clean, minimalist aesthetic, the design remains unobtrusive yet functional—providing users with a clear path to additional resources without distracting from the overall experience.

Accommodation Detail Page

Key actions—like booking or saving to a wishlist—are supported by clear visual hierarchy, intuitive links, and compelling imagery. The goal was to reduce cognitive load and enable users to quickly access the information they need, regardless of language or location.

Norway Content Page

Our strategy was to bring the breathtaking landscape and distinctive visual identity of Norway to the forefront through design. Interior content pages feature visually immersive and minimalist text.

Digital Style Guide

Following the Norwegian design style of functional minimalism: our style guide focuses on simplicity and utility.

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}