Top grades for a brand new website
Mornington Secondary College is a vibrant and progressive school on the Mornington Peninsula,
but its website was anything but. The college did not feel that its existing site was an accurate reflection of the school’s values, or that it functioned as efficiently as it could. They wanted something that captured the heart and soul of the college, conveyed its professionalism and could easily be updated to communicate school news and events. PIER were engaged for a total website overhaul.
The new website is a fantastic representation of what our school has to offer – it’s been an extremely exciting and smooth project, and we have PIER to thank for that! I have peace of mind in knowing we can update the site ourselves or lean on PIER for assistance and support when required.
Before we could begin any design or development, we needed to roll up our sleeves and do the work of understanding who would be using the website, and how. We began with a structured stakeholder meeting so we could hear from the leadership team and other staff members on their priorities for the new site and the pain points of the existing one. We focused especially on items that were mentioned more than once. Then, we interviewed parents to gain an insight into what information they required from the school website, how often they required this information, and the impression left on them by the current site.
These insights, combined with additional desktop research into competitors and analytics, helped us to devise a new sitemap outlining the pages that were required and the best layout. This allowed us to create user experience (UX)-led wireframes, which suggested a hierarchy of pages and information based on what our interviewees identified as their primary needs, while balancing the school’s priorities.
From this skeleton site, things began to come together. We rolled out branding consistently across the site and designed a sophisticated ‘news and events’ section that could easily and swiftly be updated by the staff. We began populating the website with copywriting that was simple, useful and accessible, and organised a photoshoot to capture the warmth and friendliness of the school. As a final piece of the puzzle, we created a training and website manual with a step-by-step guide for the staff so they could update elements of the site as needed.
From this skeleton site, things began to come together. We rolled out branding consistently across the site and designed a sophisticated ‘news and events’ section that could easily and swiftly be updated by the staff. We began populating the website with copywriting that was simple, useful and accessible, and organised a photoshoot to capture the warmth and friendliness of the school. As a final piece of the puzzle, we created a training and website manual with a step-by-step guide for the staff so they could update elements of the site as needed.
The outcome
Mornington Secondary College now have a website that’s driven by sound research and reflective of its true school culture. The site is led by UX, meaning that users can intuitively flow through and easily find what they’re looking for. Meanwhile, the team is empowered to update the site themselves — a huge benefit in a workplace where things are constantly changing.
The outcome
Mornington Secondary College now have a website that’s driven by sound research and reflective of its true school culture. The site is led by UX, meaning that users can intuitively flow through and easily find what they’re looking for. Meanwhile, the team is empowered to update the site themselves — a huge benefit in a workplace where things are constantly changing.
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