Spring Education Group

Project Background

What is Spring Education Group?

Spring Education Group is a for-profit organization that owns over 300 private schools across the nation. Spring schools include preschool, and K+ schools teaching children from daycare age to seniors in high school in private education. Their brands include schools such as Montessori Academy, Chesterbrook Academy, and Basis Independent Schools.

What is the problem?

Visit to Inquiry rate was down and parents were looking to learn more about the schools individuality. The school leaders were looking to move away from a uniformed website look, to a unique presence for each brand utilizing the brand colors and distinct imagery and copy to represent each school as their own entity.

What did I do?

My colleague and I were co-designers on this project. I was promoted to Senior UX Designer during this project and was tasked with organizing, delegating, and presenting this project to stakeholders and my colleague.

Tools I Used

Figma

Slack

Optimizely

WordPress

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Results

  • 43% Increase in Visit-To-Inquiry

    A previous redesign performed in 2023 showed a 43% increase in Visit-To-Inquiry making us confident this redesign would prove successful

  • 80% Increase in Clicks

    Tests in Optimizely with certain components showed an 80% increase in clicks

Our Competitors

  • Visible CTA

    Each of the competitors had a visible CTA in the hero image above the fold for each brand as well as their main umbrella sites . The CTA’s varied in the action whether it was to sign up for subscriptions, or to visit the campus but there were multiple points of contact before scrolling.

  • Visual Storytelling

    Competitors often showed instead of told parents what their child was going to be doing with their programs with engaging imagery and videos.

  • Distincton

    Competitors had sections for their brands that described what it was about their campuses that made them distinct and unique. These distinctions could help parents decide whether the offerings aligned with what they were seeking for as a family and for their child.

Key Insights

  • What is most important to you in a school for your child?

    User surveys were sent out to parents of preschool, elementary, middle, and high school parents to learn about what is most important to them when determining a school to send their child.

    We learned that parents care most about safety, curriculum, teacher qualifications, and the social development of their student.

  • When learning about a school which are you most likely to do first?

    In addition, we learned that parents are more likely to select their own time for a visit rather than a predetermined time such as an Open House. The visits need to be flexible and multiple options for communicating should be available.

  • “I’d love to see images of children actively learning in the classroom and to know what kinds of activities fall within the components of Links to Learning.”

    - Parent at Chesterbrook Academy

  • “I wish I knew more about the curriculum and what makes it different from the other schools in my area.”

    - Parent at Merryhill School

  • “Safety is my biggest concern with my child these days. I want to know how the schools are going to keep my child safe. I think about it every time I drop them off.”

    - Parent at Sagemont

Preschool Redesign

and more….

Elementary Redesign

and more….

And finally, Umbrella Redesign

Does it work?

  • Usability Testing

    My colleague and I conducted usability testing on prospective users that fell in the category of:

    - Being a parent to a student currently in school from ages day care through highschool
    - The school the student was enrolled in was a private school

    The results of the usability testing found several instances that were changed before developer handoff:

    1. Users had a difficult time finding the before and after care section as it was labeled "school age care"
    2. Users could not find the FAQ, this ended up becoming a future test in Optimizely to determine if this has any bearing in V2I

Developer Handoff

Since Dev Mode has been developed we decided to handoff our developers utilizing this new annotation tool.

Each page was diligently annotated with explanations on the interactions, and how the component will be created inside of WordPress for the product team to create their websites with individual copy and photos.

We met with developers continuously to go over the file and discuss any road blocks before creation.