As the only public high school in Evanston, Illinois, Evanston Township High School (ETHS) was experiencing dramatic growth, yet its aging website and the challenges of a constantly evolving digital landscape made it difficult for the high school to keep pace with its more tech-savvy and diverse audiences.

ETHS was eager to reinvigorate the brand and user experience through a sharper, more responsive and accessible website to capture the attention of students and parents across difference and establish loyalty among staff, alumni, donors, friends, and prospects. Partnering with IIT colleagues, we created the project goals and scope and researched deeply into school websites around the U.S. to determine trends and vendor capabilities. I engaged with the public and key stakeholders to determine usability and information needs and developed the overall UX/UI strategy and website template design using methods of Design Thinking. We met with internal stakeholders to establish a migration plan for existing content and a content development plan for new information. Our team executed a communications strategy to launch the refreshed website as well as a micro-targeted campaign using social media and word-of-mouth for new and lapsed visitors.

Deliverables:

• Project Management
• Public Outreach Strategy
• Stakeholder Engagement
• UX and UI Strategy
• Creative Direction / Supplemental Design (website template / icons)
• Site Content
• Website Development & Management
• Communications Strategy
• Email Campaign
• Social Media Campaign
• Web Analytics

The website redesign launch was highly anticipated and exceeded expectations among all audiences surveyed and tripled visits to the ETHS website while placing a much-needed focus on high-stakes information. The redesigned site included the refreshed ETHS brand, a more intuitive user experience, a responsive design that meets user needs on any desktop display, mobile device, laptop, or tablet, enhanced language translation features so that web page text can be translated into more than 30 languages spoken by students and their families, and improved ADA functionality. The vendor has used the custom template design as a model for other organizations seeking responsive template designs.