A school’s website is more than just an online presence; it’s a portal that reflects the ethos, culture, and educational standards of an institution.
As a web and design agency, we’ve built countless websites for schools and education institutions, so we understand that these projects have unique requirements to ensure staff, parents and students are happy. Below, our designers discuss their focus areas when building websites for schools.
Meeting The Designers
Our designers and developers gave feedback about their key focus areas, we’ve compiled them below.
- Michael Duncan, Creative Director – Michael is involved from the first meeting to the final product. Understanding the project, and ensuring the design meets targets.
- Veron Djojo, Senior Designer – Veron designs the website from the first iteration, to the final copy.
- Victor Fauszen, Digital Director – Victor ensures the finished website performs just as well as the original design.
- Teagan Carter, Senior Design – Teagan designs the website from the first iteration, to the final copy.
Why A Great Design Is Important
Attract Parents, Engage Students
A well-designed school website can help to attract and engage new students. When students and their parents are searching for schools, they often start by researching online. A great website can help to make a great first impression and showcase the school’s unique offerings. By showcasing the school’s facilities, academic programs, and extracurricular activities, a website can help to persuade students and parents to choose your school over others.
Connect The School Community
The website can provide a central hub for news and updates, event information, and resources for parents and students. By offering online resources, such as homework assignments, booklists, class schedules, and online portals, a website can help to streamline communication between the school, students, and parents.
Showcase Achievements
A great school website can help to showcase the school’s academic and extracurricular achievements. By highlighting the school’s successes, a website can help to build a sense of pride among students, parents, and staff. This can also help to attract new students and donors, who may be impressed by the school’s accomplishments.
Build An Online Presence
A great school website can also help to build a strong online presence for the school. By implementing best practices in search engine optimisation (SEO), and building a conversion-ready website that lays the foundation for future advertising, you can attract new students.
How To Make A Great School Website
1. Start With The Goal
It’s impossible to hit your target, if you don’t know what that target is. A school may need a new website for a range of reasons, understanding these reasons and their goals through the redesign are crucial.
Questions To Ask
- Why do you need a new website?
- What does our current website NOT achieve?
- What do we like about our current website?
2. Focus On User-Centric Design
The primary users of a school website are students, parents, and teachers. Each group has distinct needs. A successful school website must cater to each group within the same user-friendly interface. This means intuitive navigation, easy-to-find information, and a responsive design that works well on all devices, especially mobiles, as they are increasingly the go-to device for internet browsing in Australia.
Questions To Ask
- Who is the audience?
- What are they looking for on the website?
- How do they find it?
3. Account For Inclusivity and Accessibility
Inclusivity is a cornerstone of Australian education. School websites must be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. This involves following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure that content is accessible to people with impairments like vision, hearing, or cognitive disabilities. Tools like screen readers, keyboard navigation, and alternative text for images are essential.
4. Make Engaging and Relevant Content
Content is king, even on educational websites. The website should be a hub for engaging, up-to-date, and relevant information. This includes details about curricular and extracurricular activities, news updates, and resources for students and parents. Incorporating other forms of media like videos and interactive tours can enhance engagement, giving visitors a real feel of the school environment.
Questions To Ask
- What information are users looking for?
- Can we present it in a more clear, interesting or interactive way?
5. Showcase Your Branding and Visual Identity
A school’s website should reflect its branding and ethos. This is where unique design elements come into play. The use of school colors, mascots, and logos should be integrated seamlessly into the website design, ensuring a consistent and recognisable brand identity.
Questions To Ask
- Are the mission, values and ethos showcased?
- How can we make the website feel ‘unique’ through the use of brand elements?
6. Make Safety and Privacy A Priority
With the increasing concerns about online safety and data privacy, it’s important to ensure security is front of mind, especially as students will be a core user group. This includes secure hosting, regular updates, and compliance with privacy laws, particularly those concerning children’s online safety. Clear privacy policies and consent protocols for data collection are crucial.
7. Use Social Proof and Community Engagement
Testimonials, success stories, and highlights of school achievements add credibility and foster community engagement. Integrating social media feeds can also keep the content dynamic and current, showcasing the school’s activities and achievements. Even testing results, aggregate ATAR, and number of students are important details that students may look for before enrolling.
8. Make Future-Ready and Scalable Designs
A school website should be designed with the future in mind, allowing for easy updates and scalability. This ensures that the website can adapt to emerging technologies and changing educational needs.
Focus on having evergreen pages like “fees” and “booklist” which can be updated yearly with new information, rather than making a new page for each year.
Designing a school website in Australia involves a harmonious blend of functionality, accessibility, and creativity. It’s about building a web experience that is not only a repository of information but also a reflection of the school’s spirit and community. As web designers, our role is to bridge the gap between technology and education, crafting online spaces that inspire and engage the next generation.
Our Unique Perspective
One of our most significant assets in school web design is the depth of understanding gathered from over a decade of experience.
Our long-standing involvement has allowed us to accumulate a vast reservoir of data, which is instrumental in guiding our design choices and strategies. This wealth of information provides unique insights into user behaviours, preferences, and engagement patterns specific to school websites.
Our commitment to leveraging these insights sets us apart. This enables us to create school websites that align with evolve with your school and the needs of the educational community. Our services are available Australia-wide, including Perth school web design and Sydney school web design.
