Case Study
OUR LADY OF LOURDES SCHOOL
Web Design
OUR LADY OF LOURDES SCHOOL
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Our Lady of Lourdes is a private primary Catholic school serving pre-kindergarten through 8th grade. It was established in 1941, and is located in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2015, the school was named a National Blue Ribbon School, with the award recognizing various indicators of academic excellence. Gigawatt Group was approached by the school to redesign a new website with a modern look, while still capturing its culture, identity and values.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Website Redesign
User Experience & Interface Design
CLIENT INDUSTRY
Education
CHALLENGE
The challenge was to identify what needed improvement on the school’s previous website, and explore creative solutions that would deliver an enhanced user experience for both the school’s parents and faculty and staff members as they navigate the website.
With user experience and user interface design working in unison, the goal was to improve the usability of the new website, while remaining consistent in representing the established look and feel of the school through its brand identity.
Some of the features that needed to be included in the new website was the E-commerce set up of the school’s shop. This includes the purchase of products and services such as school uniforms, lunch plans, as well as ways to support the school through donations.
OUR PROCESS
The design process involved four phases: discovery, development, design, and delivery.
In the discovery phase, the team set up meetings with some of the Our Lady of Lourdes parents to walk through the previously-used website. This helped the Gigawatt team in the design thinking and strategy process, making it clear when defining the problems, which were then solved through design.
As a continuation of the user experience design phase, Gigawatt developed a sitemap to help visually lay out and organize the website’s information architecture in order of hierarchy. This supported the website’s navigation and usability, which helped the team define what the user interface design would look like.
Using the sitemap as a reference, Gigawatt designed wireframes and prototypes in the Figma software while creating a layout structure for each web page. The team then built the website’s design using Squarespace. Custom coding was also added to some of the content blocks for a more personalized and unique website experience.
As the final step before launch, Gigawatt Group conducted usability testing to ensure user satisfaction regarding the website’s performance.
RESULTS
Gigawatt Group was involved in the whole redesign process from the early stages of usability research and testing to the website’s launch in January 2023.
The new website has a fresh and modern look, with an organized information hierarchy and improved user navigation. In addition, the Gigawatt team focused on designing a mobile-friendly and responsive layout for the most optimal user experience. The new design includes interactive features such as a custom-designed monthly events calendar layout and upcoming events section that allows the parents direct access to the information they need through the homepage.
After the launch, the Gigawatt team remained available for training and technical support to help some of the faculty and staff members learn how to manage and update the website. The team also delivered visual guidance to keep the school’s website and brand looking cohesive and consistent.
“The team at Gigawatt was incredible. Their proactive, flexible and creative approach is wonderful. The results are fabulous.”
