Your school’s website can either make or break a prospective students’ decision to apply or visit, a parents’ decision to enroll their child, and an alumnus’ decision to donate to their alma mater. Just like any organization, schools are expected to have websites that accurately reflect their learning environments and provide sufficient information to keep students and their families updated on important campus news.
This is even more true with the massive shift to online education. With all that depends on your school’s website, it’s important to spend sufficient time developing content that conveys your commitment to education and resonates with visitors.
If your school is experiencing a lack of online engagement, it may be time for a website overhaul to recapture your community’s attention. When you enter your school website redesign project, implement these three vital tips to establish a solid digital presence:
As you read through these tips, reference Morweb’s list of well-designed college websites to see them at work. Whether you’re part of the higher education sector or work at a K-12 school, every type of institution can learn from these engaging designs. Some of these real-world examples may even spark inspiration for your own website.
Ready to enter your school web design project with confidence? Let’s get started.
With the massive shift to virtual learning, educators are forced to rethink how they communicate with students, hold classes remotely, and keep students engaged while at home. Your website plays an active role in easing this transition.
Using your school’s website, you can continue providing valuable learning opportunities and remain connected to students despite the physical distance. Three primary learning opportunities you’ll want to consider are:
Going virtual doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the quality of the learning experience. Instead, it actually offers a powerful opportunity to get creative in the way you share knowledge with students altogether.
While the above suggestions serve as a solid starting point, encourage your faculty members to share any other ideas they have for easing the shift to remote operations. By prioritizing the learning experience, your school will make the virtual classroom as enjoyable as possible and portray that it cares about students’ experiences.
Mobile devices are now the primary way people surf the web, and mobile traffic has consistently accounted for more than 50% of all web traffic for the past few years. Not to mention, mobile use in the education field alters the way students and teachers communicate and can be used to improve instructional quality, according to Classter. With a persistent reliance on these devices, it’s important to prioritize the mobile experience by featuring a responsive design.
When your website is mobile-responsive, the elements on each page will restructure based on the visitor’s screen size. This ensures your mobile and tablet users can find and interact with information without having to zoom in, pinch their screens, or rotate their devices.
Take your digital forms for example. When a prospective student goes to fill out an application or an alumnus goes to give through your donation form, the fields, images, and text should all adjust to fit their screen size. A responsive design will also offer touch-friendly features like drop-down menus and easy-to-hit submission buttons to smoothen the process further. Otherwise, you may lose out on valuable conversions and leads.
For schools, your communications will benefit greatly from a responsive design. This means:
Remember, many parents or guardians have busy schedules and need to check their children’s school website on the go for things like the academic calendar or campus announcements. They’ll appreciate it if your website automatically adjusts to fit their smartphone screens.
To streamline the process, look for a school website builder that offers automatic mobile responsiveness. Rather than producing multiple versions of your website to work on various screen sizes, your school can focus on producing content that compels students and their parents to continue exploring your site.
Schools often try to cram as much information as possible into their websites. After all, why would you waste valuable space? While this may be tempting, refrain from doing so, because it works against you in three ways:
The last thing you want is to risk pushing users away from your school’s website. Instead, feature a minimalist design that strategically uses white space. Also commonly called “negative space,” white space refers to the empty space between page elements (such as your images and text).
As explained in this guide, web developers use white space to break up content, draw attention to certain content elements, and make information digestible. Think of it as a way to provide users with a visual breathing space.
To incorporate white space effectively, use it to draw attention to your most important elements. The more white space around an object, the more the readers’ eyes are drawn to it. You can also use white space to indicate the relationship between elements. Take your forms for instance. Place labels directly above their respective fields to indicate what information the user needs to enter.
Be sure not to overuse white space though. It does still take up space after all. Try to strike the perfect balance between page elements and the space between them, and your design will be much more appealing to visitors.
Your school’s website is one of its primary engagement tools. With the shift to remote operations, its role in your communication and education strategies has grown even more prevalent. As such, it’s important to take the time to develop an engaging school website.
From valuable education opportunities to a visually-engaging layout, there are many ways to develop your school’s website and subsequently garner attention from your community. It’s up to your team to bring your vision to life.
Remember, the right content management system will aid greatly in the development process. One that’s catered toward the unique needs of schools will provide the right functionality and design elements necessary to create an effective school website. Backed by the right platform and some web design best practices, you’ll be well on your way to creating a beautiful website that features valuable content and promotes a highly-engaging learning environment.
τα προγράμματα συνδρομής του Classter βασίζονται στις λειτουργίες που επιλέγετε να ενεργοποιήσετε καθώς και στον αριθμό των ενεργών μαθητών. Απλά επιλέξτε τις συγκεκριμένες ανάγκες του εκπαιδευτηρίου σας και η ομάδα πωλήσεων θα σας αποστείλει μια εξατομικευμένη προσφορά.
See for yourself why more than 200 academic institutions from all educational stages trust Classter to bring their people, operations and data together in one place.
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Δείτε γιατί περισσότεροι από 200 εκπαιδευτικοί οργανισμοί σε όλο τον κόσμο εμπιστεύονται το Classter για να έχουν μια ολοκληρωμένη λύση διαχείρισης ακαδημαϊκών και οικονομικών διαδικασιών.
Μια σύντομη συνομιλία μαζί σας θα μας βοηθήσει να κατανοήσουμε τις ξεχωριστές ανάγκες του οργανισμού σας και να σας εξηγήσουμε πως το Classter μπορεί να σας βοηθήσει.
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