Great School Websites Nail the Fundamentals
I spend some portion of every day examining independent school websites. Sometimes, I’m working on photography or branding for a client’s site. Other days, I’m conducting competitor research for a school’s marketing plan. Recently, I’ve been working on the backend of Charleston Collegiate School’s new site (just launched!) and another that we have in development (stay tuned…).
Because of this ongoing study, and dozens of conversations with families and school folks, I’ve become convinced of a simple fact: Great school websites nail the fundamentals.
Good Design Should Not Feel Complicated
I have a good friend who is an expert in crafting high-end brand experiences. If you distill his ethos down, he says the key to creating an incredible experience is to make it uncomplicated. Your school’s website should embrace the same ethos.
The best website user experience and design should feel almost invisible. Users should glide frictionlessly throughout your site, rarely thinking about the website itself. Instead, they are thinking about the school. They are engaging with the stories, photography, programs, and people being presented to them.
Most often, this requires restraint. Agencies and designers want to incorporate bells and whistles. They want to justify their fees and assure you that your website will be unlike any other. It is imperative that you apply the brakes and never lose sight of your most important stakeholders: your current and prospective families.
The Fundamentals to Nail
Clear Navigation
Err on the side of a simple and understandable menu structure on your site. This applies to the design of your menu. For instance, families expect a menu at the top of your site. Don’t put it vertically down the left or right.
Simplicity also applies to the text you use in your menu. Families expect clear menu items like, “Admissions,” “Academics,” “Student Life,” and more. I recently saw a website where those menu items were instead called, “Start Your Journey,” “Inside the Classroom,” and “Outside the Classroom.” It wasn’t that hard to figure out, but the different naming convention caused unnecessary friction and required extra thought on the user’s part.
Strong Photography
You must have compelling photography on your website. It is such a worthwhile investment and it can make your website feel emotionally compelling (or not) for prospective families. Read more about why schools should invest in great photography.
Legible Typography & Mobile-Friendly Design
These days, a responsive (mobile friendly) design is a given. You should assume that roughly 70% of your website traffic will be on a mobile device. Ensure that your website is easy to use and easy to read on a phone.
Fast Load Times
If you’ve never run a speed test on your website, you should. If your website isn’t blazing fast, you need to examine why. Because attention spans are so short, if your website takes even an extra moment to load, you’ve lost people. More often than not, the cause of a slow website is large photos that aren’t compressed or optimized.
Clear User Pathways
In the spirit of creating an uncomplicated and frictionless user experience, the user journey should be intentional and clear. Don’t have a website with dead ends or complicated junctions for the user. Have clear next pages to visit, thoughtful messaging, and obvious calls to action.
A Couple of Things to Avoid
Too Much Movement
Have you been on a website that induces motion sickness? If your photos, headlines, and text all shift and move every time a user scrolls, pause and reconsider your design. Some movement is dynamic and fun, but it is so easily overdone. Use restraint with motion. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Expensive Ongoing Costs and Limited Ability to Edit
This point isn’t about user experience or design, but you shouldn’t spend a fortune on website hosting and maintenance. For most schools, $500 per year is more than enough to cover hosting costs. More importantly, you must be able to edit your own website, update your photos, add new pages, and generally maintain the website yourself. If you cannot make changes to your own website, it’s time to rethink your options.
Great Websites Reflect Your School Honestly
When prospective families arrive on campus, the experience should feel consistent with what they found on your website. The tone should match. The culture should match. The brand should match. I’ve spoken with a family who loved a school’s website and decided not to enroll because the school they found in person differed so greatly from the online presence. Don’t be that school!
If you take one thing from this article, resist the urge to overcomplicate things. If you chase every design trend and implement every new website feature, you’ll create something that doesn’t effectively reach your key constituents.
Focus on creating something that isn’t complicated. Nail those fundamentals.
I have to plug the site we recently built for Charleston Collegiate School’s. It hits a lot of the right notes and we’re very proud of it. If you want to brainstorm about your site or a new build, shoot us an email at info@38house.com.
