HCC Preschool webpage

Creating a new webpage to highlight the benefits of nature preschool education

Project Goal

Create a new webpage to highlight the benefits of nature preschool education

Introduction

Following the success of their redesigned camp digital experience, I was contracted by HCC to redesign their webpage for preschool camps and programs. Recently, HCC had expanded the scope of their preschool nature education offerings, and believed the existing webpage no longer represented the needs of the program, and felt that stylistically it was outdated and disjointed. My goals were to create a redesigned webpage which effectively showcased the benefits of preschool nature education, and to update the page’s style to be more appealing and cohesive with other pages on the website.

Defining the Problem

Stakeholder interviews

To better understand the goals and aspirations my client had for this project, I conducted a stakeholder interview with HCC Preschool Director. Based on this interview, I learned some key details about the project:

The topics people would contact the director about were varied and distinct.

Along with this finding, I also learned one of the Director's needs was a way to organize all these emails, and help distinguish parent emails from other preschool-related emails; based on this information, I decided to segment the types of requests and topics prospective families were reaching out about into different links and buttons, with each topic generating a corresponding subject line, making for easy organization.

People were often curious about the curriculum, as it wasn’t a type of education they had experience with.

One of the main competitive advantages that this Nature Preschool wanted to market itself with was its unique education philosophy. Naturally, because the Nature Preschool's curriculum and education approach was so novel, parents had a lot of questions. Based on this finding, I decided to take advantage of existing FAQ related information the Preschool already had on hand, and combine this information with an overview of their curriculum and policies, to make a single location parents could find the answers they were searching for.

This nature preschool program was new and was successful so far, but didn’t have the prestige or reputation that other HCC programs had built up.

One of the goals for this project, and the main impetus for this redesign, was to show to prospective parents how successful the program had been, and encourage them to enroll with confidence. This gave me an idea to create a sort of “testimonials” section for the page, highlighting all the positive buzz and press the Nature Preschool had received.

Creating a Unified Design

First Iteration

1. A separated tour link which essentially does the same as the contact section below, but both encourages the user to reach out for this specific option, and helps distinguish these emails from the rest for the Director.

2. Separating these topics into three columns helps 'chunk' the information for easier scanning in two ways; First, aligning these topics at the top of each column makes them easy to locate and gives the design a clean and polished look. Second, displaying each topic's content in list form makes it more readable and memorable than the previous version's paragraphs.A separated tour link which essentially does the same as the contact section below, but both encourages the user to reach out for this specific option, and helps distinguish these emails from the rest for the Director.

3. A dedicated contact section will help structure the flow of requests and questions the Director receives; It's also a perfect space for a brief bio of the Director, and to highlight her qualifications.

Second Iteration

1. An expanded 'Tuition' section helps users plan for their upcoming year and sets their expectations for program length.

2. Dedicated 'Scholarship' section moved below 'Curriculum' to better align with user needs and expectations when visiting this page. 

3. Additional testimonials help shape this section from a show-and-tell of the Nature Preschool's capabilities, to a collection of social proof highlighting the program's success.

Before and After- Nature Preschool Page

Results

"Working with Nick was a wonderful experience! After discussing the needs for our webpage, Nick brought the vision to life. Not only did his creative and aesthetic approach hugely improve the functionality and flow to our site, his work has resulted in more interaction with our page. Nick's thoughtfulness, communication and responsiveness fostered a very positive experience as he navigated and addressed our prior obstacles. We are very happy with the work he's done on our webpage and look forward to working with him again in the future"

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Jessica Caylor, Nature Preschool Director

The Nature Preschool has continued to grow, and as of March 2022 was completely filled, with an ever expanding waitlist of hopeful families.

Full Site:

https://www.howardnature.org/preschool/