How to decide on a redesign and whether you need it: A case study of a language school.
Hi, I’m Vladyslav Hryhorenko, product designer and product manager. At the beginning of 2022 I started redesigning the website of ILS language school — I began by redesigning the personal account, and eventually, I brought in an SEO specialist to completely redesign the entire project. The result — organic traffic increased by 50%, plus everything became much better with the depth of views and bounce rate, the load on technical support staff decreased. And most importantly — sales increased. In this case study I’ll tell you what we did and how we did it to achieve this — implement the practices in your projects or write to me, I’ll help you.
I’ll also answer the questions I regularly hear from businesses: “Is it really necessary to change the whole site? What should I do if the site seems outdated? Views and visits are dropping — will a redesign definitely help? Maybe it’s better not to redesign, but just to fix something small?”.
What kind of school and why a website is important for it
ILS is a language school for children and adults. It offers classes online and offline, individually or in a group. A website for a business serves several functions simultaneously:
- A source of potential customers. Usually leads from search and targeted advertising come to the homepage and minilandings.
- A service to clarify language level — also part of the sales funnel.
- A platform where people learn online — there is a personal account, statistics of lessons, the ability to connect to webinars, take lessons.
- A service for taking exams — the school has testing to confirm the level.
- Part of content marketing — there is a blog with useful information for students and those interested in the language.
The project developed gradually, and the website initially served its purposes. However, over time, even the staff found it challenging to locate necessary information on the portal, and students struggled to navigate their personal accounts.
How clients started to leave because of design problems
The initial task assigned by the customer was to redesign the personal account. It was necessary to work on structuring the information, to arrange visual accents, because the interface was garish and multicolored — people did not understand where to look and click. This had a bad effect on customer loyalty, and also put a lot of strain on the technical support department — students asked the same type of questions, couldn’t figure out how to turn on the right lesson or track progress.
When we started to study the whole site and user paths, It turned out that the problem was more profound than initially apparent; the entire portal lacked a consistent visual style and well-thought-out ergonomics. The reason, most likely, was the rapid development — the project is in demand, it grows quickly, there are a lot of students, so the customer set tasks for the developers to finalize the key functions, and there was not enough time and competence for the design of trivial things.
There was also an engineering problem — the website and student portal were made on a proprietary engine that was architecturally different from popular content management systems. I can’t tell you the details, but imagine a mix between CMS, CRM and EMS systems, and all without a single architecture, with multiple entities. So any design changes required the time and attention of already overloaded developers. As a result, any solutions had to be carefully planned in advance because redesigning was prohibitively expensive.
After our discussions, we decided that a complete project redesign was necessary. I am not only the designer in the project, but also the manager. Design is a complex engineering process, so it is impossible to do everything on your own. We adhered to these principles:
- We employ an iterative approach. Given the size of the portal, we avoid extensive tasks and attempting to cover everything simultaneously. Instead, we focus on one functional block, thoroughly work on it, and then proceed to the next.
- We immediately engage an SEO specialist, because leads come mainly from organic traffic, and the project benefits from it.
- We work in conjunction with the customer’s marketer — he, together with the copywriter, helps to formulate meanings and offers to customers on key pages of the site.
- We gradually test all the innovations, collect data and build new hypotheses based on them — any changes in design should be supported by facts and analytics.
The outcome: 10 months of work, comprising roughly 126 layouts. The customer evaluates the project perfectly — the conversion rate has increased, the load on technical support staff has become less, the depth of browsing on the site — more than two pages.
I’ll tell you what typical blocks we created and why I advise similar education projects to implement them.
Menu and navigation
Navigation is typically the most challenging aspect of large content projects. With dozens of sections and hundreds of subsections, expecting users to comprehend a vast nested list is unlikely. Plus you need to take into account the semantic core, and then build the information architecture of the site.
When designing the navigation for ILS, we drew inspiration from banking services. Banks, like us, cater to a broad audience and offer numerous products with intricate details. Banks spend millions on UX-research, and successful solutions end up in production — if you have a complex project, use their practices as a basis.
Menus and page structure play a crucial role in SEO. A well-thought-out navigation system makes it easier for users to find what they need, reducing bounce rates and rapid page switches. This user-friendly experience is perceived positively by search engines, increasing the likelihood of the project appearing more frequently in Google and other search engine results. Experience shows that search engines perceive such behavior as positive, there is a higher chance that the project will more often appear in the results of Google and other search engines.
Teachers Block
This is an automatically updated element; the CMS retrieves teacher data from the database. When designing such blocks, you need to take into account the human factor — not always the manager fills in all the necessary cells, or some line will be huge, for example, as in the case of regalia. Additionally, it’s important to consider photo variations — some photos may be lighter, while others could be darker.
The problem was solved visually — we made the cards clearly separated from the background. And we worked out the template — now, if a card is stretched, it still looks organic in the overall design of the block.
Calculator on the home page
When a business has complex products with nuances, the question always arises: “What to do with prices, how to write them on the site so that no one gets confused?”. I know two extremes in solving this problem — to put a price on the site, in which users are sure to get confused, or “send everyone in person”, that is, offer to call a manager.
We opted for a third solution by creating a calculator with approximate prices. So we solved several problems at once:
- Potential customers are comfortable — no need to understand a hundred lines of price list, just select the necessary filters and the site will show the price “from”.
- Business is also good — those who are expensive, do not call and do not waste time, both their own and employees.
- There is a direct contact with the interested customer — when the manager specifies the price over the phone, he can immediately offer an additional service on the topic, so the average check increases.
I am a fan of such calculators — it seems to be a real way to show the approximate price of a complex product in a way that takes into account the interests of both the business and the user.
Language clubs
ILS has a cool format for those who want to practice more — conversation clubs, offline and online. But for some reason the school didn’t actively use them — you could only sign up for a club through your personal account, which you still need to register first. Plus there were difficulties with choosing online or offline — in CMS these are different entities.
We redesigned everything for the user’s comfort:
- We integrated information about clubs into the main site, allowing the schedule to be accessible to not only school students but also all users.
- We separated the online and offline formats, recognizing that they cater to different audiences with varying pricing and organizational characteristics. After all, offline clubs can take place in different schools, it is important that the client is not confused.
- Less actions from the client, more automation — now the user chooses a club on the main page and leaves an application for a lesson, and the system itself creates a personal account and redirects him to the payment page.
All information about clubs is now structured in the same cards, managers fill out everything according to a template, the design is neat and clear at a glance.
Online language tests
ILS has a cool magnet for potential clients — you can take an online test to find out how well you know a language. The tests are divided by language and by age.
The way it used to be: all the tests were placed on one page.
What we did: We created a separate page for each test, obtained user-friendly descriptions from a copywriter, and organized links to each test within a dedicated block on the main page.
As a result, the attendance of the project increased, people began to come more actively to the pages with a particular test. Judging by communication with managers, the conversion from taking a test to buying classes has also increased.
Promotions page
Previously, the project told about promotions and discounts as ordinary news — create a page, publish and forget. Now, promotions have become a distinct entity within the site system. Each promotion has a specific duration, a dedicated page, and stylish templates for presentation.
Why redesigning a working project is the path to growth
Redesigning a project doesn’t always necessitate a comprehensive overhaul, especially when the current version is performing well. Instead, it’s often more practical to pinpoint specific areas, such as blocks, sections, or mechanics, where users encounter difficulties, frequently contact support, experience a drop in conversion rates, or show a high bounce rate. By addressing these specific pain points, you can identify and rectify issues, evaluate the impact through analytics and testing, and draw informed conclusions.
We can’t say that redesign is a magic pill and will help every business take off. But I’m sure that even a small revision of typical blocks will help clients to navigate through your interface more easily — and therefore feel more positive emotions from the project as a whole. If you need help with design, write me, let’s make your project more profitable.
email: qvladislavp@gmail.com
telegram: https://t.me/Renk_Vladyslav
