School website examples best / worst

[mrstrong]

Having recently inherited responsibility for our website I'm looking for some examples of what to do

and also what not to do!

 

I'd be interested in seeing some examples of the best and worst (in your opinion).

 

I've got the doc from gov.uk of what needs to be on the website, I'm more interested in

peoples opinions on good / bad design and content.

[Jcx500]

I've found people don't want cluttered pages of information but do want short but informative pages, Also a mini news tab on the home page for information has been helpful

[3s-gtech]

Without naming and shaming (I don't trawl enough school websites to have much idea), poor design that I've seen in the past includes

 

• overly nested menus without any sort of breadcrumbs
  
• low-res and poor quality images, often stretched
  
• upscaled and low-res logos
  
• very poor experience on mobile devices/non-responsive layout
  
• missing important information (sometimes including the statutory stuff)
  
• too many massive images sliding, fading and scrolling in
  

 

Some good design I've seen:

 

 

• important information no more than a couple of menus deep
  
• attractive, modern, responsive design without too many gimmicks
  
• HTTPS!
  
• fast page load
  

 

I'm not going to plug our website, as it doesn't hit all of these criteria and I'm not a good enough designer to sort it. I have tried to keep as many of these things in mind as possible though.

[Cat_Jam148]

I've found people don't want cluttered pages of information but do want short but informative pages, Also a mini news tab on the home page for information has been helpful

 

^ This

 

A tab or box on the homepage with a bunch of quick links seems to work well. Get people to your newsletter, term dates, calendar etc... without having to crawl through menus.

 

Also, no matter the design, having up-to-date information is key (duh...). There are so many schools in our local area with websites that look like they were last updated over a year ago. Yes, you may have a fancy designed site but your information is a year out of date.

[Jawloms]

I find a common thing seems to be adding so many things to a menu that the menu then doesn't fit on the screen!

[mrstrong]

Thanks, but no one prepared to stick head above parapet and post an example, at least of a good site ?!

 

I did find this site

Best Education Website Awards

With this years winner

https://www.shipleyschool.org/

(its american not yorkshire shipley!)

 

Personally I find these type of sites a bit too much on the eyes (may be an age thing!).

I was thinking of maybe a very simple design, fairly static content e.g. policies etc and using

social media e.g. twitter for news

[Cat_Jam148]

Thanks, but no one prepared to stick head above parapet and post an example, at least of a good site ?!

 

Our website was built by Greenhouse School Websites - they have a rather large catalogue of fairly good school websites in their portfolio

 

Should be enough to get some inspiration from.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Cat_Jam148

[dhicks]

I've got the doc from gov.uk of what needs to be on the website, I'm more interested in peoples opinions on good / bad design and content.

 

GOV.UK also do a whole design system:

 

https://design-system.service.gov.uk/

 

This is a set of HTML / Javascript / CSS templates and components set up for a GOV.UK - style website, but the content is open and useable for other sites. I'm currently using it to run a (non-school) Jekyll statically-generated site, with content editing being done in GSuite / O365. GOV.UK's websites have won various awards for design / clarity / accesibility, and they have put proper effort into making sure their system works with things like screen readers.

[TechMonkey]

I've got the doc from gov.uk of what needs to be on the website, I'm more interested in

peoples opinions on good / bad design and content.

 

Problem is it is very subjective and depends on the requirements of the school and what they are trying to convey.

 

When we were trawling sites Brambletye came up as one people liked. Wellington College often gets cited as a nice website. Eastbourne College is a nice graphical site.

[jthompson]

The website has to work well on mobile, as you'll likely find that 90%+ of all traffic to it is from mobiles. A good, responsive design (i.e. the layout switches automatically according to page width) is therefore a must.

A search function that actually works is also key. Since school websites are going to always be full of a massive range of things, nailing the menu structure in a way that works well but also appeases all of the different staff interests is pretty tough. Where does information about the school uniform go, for instance? Under 'Parents', 'School Information', 'Policies'? The deputy head's new revision initiative may be worthy of top-level-menu-entry status for them, but it probably isn't really. Just provide a prominent search box that surfaces things well.

Use good quality photographs for promotional images. Ideally taken by a professional photographer so that backgrounds are nice and buttery smooth, horizons are level, there are no crisp packets blowing around people's feet, etc.

 

I'd recommend having the facility to quickly add a prominent alert banner right on the homepage, in case of snow closures, etc.

 

Our site is done by e4education. They've got a large portfolio of examples - https://www.e4education.co.uk/ourwork.

[mrstrong]

thanks, I'll take a look at those examples.

 

Interesting point about screen readers.

I heard something on the radio over Christmas about a US company that was successfully sued

as one of their apps/software didn't fully implement "accessibility features".

 

Not sure about legislation in UK maybe just need to offer a hard copy if requested ?

[Cat_Jam148]

Not sure about legislation in UK maybe just need to offer a hard copy if requested ?

 

That's what we do. We have this on our contact page:

 

"If you require paper copies of any of the information found on our website, please contact the school office. These shall be provided free of charge."

Edited January 8, 2020 by Cat_Jam148

[pete]

thanks, I'll take a look at those examples.

 

Interesting point about screen readers.

I heard something on the radio over Christmas about a US company that was successfully sued

as one of their apps/software didn't fully implement "accessibility features".

 

Not sure about legislation in UK maybe just need to offer a hard copy if requested ?

 

Dominos Pizza via the ADA Act?

 

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/accessibility-the-future-and-why-dominos-matters/

[synaesthesia]

One thing to consider is if you really need things like "latest news" on a website. Comparing traffic and throughput on our website to our hits & interactions on social media, it's clear the website need be little more than an OFSTED box ticking exercise and google bot hive. We as a result concentrate on the latest and greatest news via social media where it actually gets attention, keep all the necessary important information on the website (term dates, policies, all the usual legal bumph, contact details etc) and rarely bother with anything newsy on it - this suits us extremely well and parents/children even better. People just don't go to school websites on purpose any more - they'll google a school, shout at Siri/Alexa/Bimble/whatever to ask for when XYZ school is open or what is their email address or phone number and that's it. The only time that's any different is around open evenings for prospective parents.

[jthompson]

I think that even if your school is promoting itself on social media, you also need to reflect all of that content on your website, too. Plenty of people don't use or don't want to use social media. It's also debatable whether establishments that have a duty of pastoral care should be seen to be 'pushing' social media use at all.

 

My point is basically that you need to cater for everyone and not assume that everyone uses Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram.

[synaesthesia]

Of course, but reality says different. I'm not exaggerating when I say a 1500 pupil school is getting between 1 and 2 dozen hits on it's website, all from google searches for specific information compared to 2 to 3 thousand facebook reach per week. This obviously will differ per district, per school, per county so mileage will vary. It pays to know your target audience.

[witch]

Also - alongside all the current info, some of the best websites I have seen have lots of tweets from different departments with all the gen on what they have been/will be doing. That seems to go down well and covers both people who actually do follow on twitter and those who prefer looking at the website.

[PotNoodleTech]

Problem is it is very subjective and depends on the requirements of the school and what they are trying to convey.

 

When we were trawling sites Brambletye came up as one people liked. Wellington College often gets cited as a nice website. Eastbourne College is a nice graphical site.

 

I like all three of those!

 

Got the same problem here - we really need a super professional website but there's not super professional funding for it, and when creating there's little engagement and it always ends up after it's completed being a bit of a disappointment.

 

50% of me was just thinking do one in google sites rather than wasting money but I know it won't look as professional as those three above.

[jthompson]

50% of me was just thinking do one in google sites rather than wasting money but I know it won't look as professional as those three above.

 

That's probably not a bad idea, even if just as a way to mock up an overall structure and meet your minimum requirements. At least you wouldn't have to maintain a web server and worry about whether it'll fall over the moment snow is forecast.

[synaesthesia]

Too much scrolling on that Eastbourne site before you hit the info you need. Too much marketing involved on many sites; we're educators, not businesses (OK, strictly we are these days but still). Take out the top 2/3rds of that page and it'd be spot on.

[AdamL]

I created our school website on Wix, mainly as another cost cutting measure. Not the best but it does the job for us. Edited January 10, 2020 by AdamL