If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a stunning K-12 website design is worth a million visits. Good design goes beyond colors and logos. It takes your district's goals, usability needs, and content layout into consideration. When Wylie Independent School District (TX) was ready for a website refresh, they looked for a solution that had it all. Their journey of finding Schoolwires, creating a Made-To-Order design, and increasing community engagement is an achievement they love to share with peers from other districts.

1. Why Design Matters
HOW TO MAKE YOUR WEBSITE WORTH A MILLION VISITS

2. Your Presenters from Wylie ISD
MARCIA COKER
COORDINATOR FOR COMMUNITY RELATIONS
DOUG BELLAMY
WEB/MULTIMEDIA COORDINATOR

3. A Quick Survey
How many of you are happy with your current online presence? What would make it better?

4. Designing with
THE STORY OF WYLIE ISD’S PROCESS AND WHY DESIGN MATTERS

5. We are here to
discuss how
design can make
your website
better.
What do you
consider to be
important pieces
of design?
Everything on
my homepage
Flashy graphic
elements
Utilizes the
latest trends
Navigation
without labels
Trendy without
compatibility
considerations

6. Our Journey
Prior to 2010, our website was a self-
built, utilitarian set of static pages that
presented our community with basic
information.
In January 2011, we moved to a more
visually pleasant design shown here.
At launch, the information was the
same as the old site, just presented in
an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Wylie ISD hired a new superintendent
in the summer of 2011 who is very
blog happy, video intensive and social
media savvy. Soon he, along with
many of our teachers, became
frustrated with the limited features
and lack of interaction of our website.
The final straw was the announcement
in 2013 that our website provider was
no longer going to develop the web
application.

7. The Search
Begins
In October 2013, we decided to take
our design-centered approach to the
next level.
To do so, we wanted to also address
additional requests for feature
upgrades, including a simple, flexible
CMS that could grow with our
changing needs; use a single sign-on
solution; ability to integrate with our
SIS and is mobile friendly.
In addition, we learned that
approximately 90% of our parents
used the website as the “go to” place
for information. Therefore, it had to
be easy on the front end.

8. Time to get a
little rest before
we dive in .
We shopped many vendors and sat
through a lot of demonstrations that
were essentially the same and met
some of our objectives.
However, most vendors lacked true
customization options. Their idea of
customization was to choose from a
handful of templates and then apply
our colors and logos. And while this
would work to relay our message, it
lacked style (aka design)
We needed custom… and that’s where
we found Schoolwires.

9. Schoolwires allowed us to customize
just about every aspect of our website
design. We chose where elements
were located, how they presented
themselves, font styles, etc.
Think of it as building a home. Would
you rather purchase the builder spec
home with random cabinets, carpet
and colors or choose your own tile,
wood and finishes?

10. So What Is Design?
WHAT MAKES IT GOOD AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

11. Design is defined as…
the art and practice of planning and projecting ideas and experiences with visual and textual
content. The form of the communication can be physical or virtual, and may include images,
words, or graphic forms.
More straightforward…
Design solves problems and provides solutions
Source - American Institute of Graphic Arts

12. Good Design Meets Most, if not, All of the Following
Criteria
1. It has a purpose
2. It communicates effectively
3. It uses an appropriate typeface
one that is easy to read and fits the design
4. It uses appropriate, coordinated colors
contrast is key as is balance and color harmony
5. It features clear, relevant images
high quality photos and graphics. NO CLIP ART!!
6. It has effective, logical navigation
7. Is small in terms of load time
no one likes waiting for web pages to load
For even better user experience:
 Uses a grid based layout
Structured form using columns and other aligned elements to
create a balanced, coherent feel
 Utilizes an “F” pattern for content layout
Appeals to the tendency for people to focus on the upper left-
hand corner of a page, proceed to the right, then down and to the
right again
 Is mobile friendly
Can be achieved through responsive design or a dedicated mobile
site

13. How does layout/design affect users
Your content is important. Equally important are first impressions. When your information is
well organized and formatted in a visually pleasing manner, people are more likely to continue
using your site.
In other words, the time and effort put into the design and layout of your site should parallel the
passion you have in creating and correcting (spell checking and grammar are a must!) the
content itself.
“Web design and content are like the yin and the yang, perfectly
balancing one another. Or, if you prefer to think of it in terms of form
vs. function, great website design is the Form that creates the vital
first impression. Content is the Function, the device that attracts
search engines, intrigues your audience, and drives measurable
results.” – Jeff Kline, President of Accrinet.com

14. Let’s take a look a few examples.

15. How does layout/design affect users
COMPLEX/DIFFICULT TO READ CLEAN/READABLE

16. F Pattern Layout Example
These are charts of the human eye reading several webpages. You can see the areas of focus form the likeness of the letter “F”.

17. This is what happens when you don’t use good design
This page is so poorly built it made a list of the worst websites of 2014. Notice the seemingly random placement of elements,
lack of continuity, difficult to read fonts and you can thank me later for not showing the blurry, pixelated images and the use of
random colors for emphasis.
Remember purpose? Can anyone tell me what the concealed carry report ad on the right has to do with magic in Baltimore?
http://themagicofbaltimore.blogspot.co.uk/

18. Don’t Do this
Bold text is meant to highlight something important. When everything is bold, nothing is important. Also, match colors. The
Wylie ISD maroon has a specific value. Close is not good enough when you are talking good design. This author used #800000 as
an approximation of our branded maroon, but should have looked up the correct number.

19. Instead, do this
Change text color and bold text only when necessary for emphasis. Also notice the maroon in the text now matches the
template color as well. Much cleaner and legible look that maintains the overall design.

20. How Does the Design Process Work?
Where to start and the steps involved in creating and implementing a design.

21. Made-To-Order
or Design-Ready?
True design is unique and personal. It
makes a statement about your district
and speaks to your constituents in a
manner in which they are familiar and
comfortable.
While using a Design-Ready template
can yield great results, Made-To-Order
design allows you to do so much more.

22. How Do I Start?
Every project is different. Get
organized, determine what is truly
important to you and your district, and
let the Schoolwires designers work
with you to create a Made-To-Order
design concept that fits your vision.
In other words, you need to know
what you want AND be open to
suggestions from professionals that
know how to make it all work together.

23. Our Process
•We discussed the wants and
needs with our assigned designer.
We submitted logos, colors,
design ideas and examples of sites
we liked. Our designer walked us
through additional information
needed to come up with an
overall design.
Discover
•The initial design was created and
shared with us. Many revisions
were made to get the design “just
right” for us.
Design
•It is at this point where our site
was built. Graphics were created
and code was written to make the
site look and function as we
envisioned the design phase.
Develop
•The Schoolwires team posted our
site to our account. And since we
were working on our content in
the incubation site, all of our
content was ready. At this point
the site was complete and ready
to launch!
Deploy
The overall process spanned from
November 2013 through May 2014.
We began with general ideas of how
the site should look and how it should
function. Then we presented the
designer with our ideas, colors, logos
and concept art and the designer
came up with an initial concept.

24. Our Homepage
Here is the first draft of our website.
Good start, but…
There were elements that just did not
fit or function quite right.
We continued working with the
designer to tweak major and minor
elements to suit our needs and taste.

25. Our Result
A website that provides useful information in a well thought-out presentation. Teachers have responded by using
the site much more than our previous solution and our community has praised the design and layout as being
much easier to use and navigate. Lastly, our campus webmasters have been more successful in putting quality
content on their sites…thanks to the overall design.

26. Statistical Results
In the five months the site has been in use, we have had more than 650,000 visits
We average more than 25,000 page views per day
Approximately 50% of our parents have signed into the system
More than 93% of teachers have signed into the system within the last 30 days
The last two are substantially more than we had on our last site

27. In Conclusion…
The Golden Rule
Just because you can do something,
does not mean you should! Attracting
attention and visitors is a good thing,
but you don’t need to put on clown
pants to do it!
“Genuine good taste consists in saying much in
few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in
having order and arrangement in what we say,
and in speaking with composure.”
--Francois Fenelon

28. Schoolwires has the tools to help you get on track:
• Website Grader
• Community Engagement Assessment
• ROC Presentation
How do you know if your K-12 district is
operating at optimal engagement?
Website design is part of the equation,
but there’s more!

29. Put Your K-12
Website To The
Test
A quality district or school website can
be critical for connecting with your
K-12 community.
The question is:
How well does your website function?
http://offers.schoolwires.com/website-grader

30. Take The Free
Community
Engagement
Assessment!
Most K-12 districts are on a journey to
fully optimize community engagement
and operate at peak levels.
How do you know where your district
is on that journey?
http://offers.schoolwires.com/cea

31. Schedule Your
Free ROC
Presentation!
Take the next step in determining
your district’s place on the
Roadmap for Optimizing
Communities.
http://offers.schoolwires.com/roc-presentation

32. What questions do you have for our presenters?
Want to learn more about website design?
Check out these resources:
• [Blog] Smart K-12 Website Design: http://blog.schoolwires.com/topic/website-design
• [Webinar] Why Design Matters: http://www.schoolwires.com/domain/84
• [Blog] Getting it right: Custom design should mean “unique” and “from scratch”
http://blog.schoolwires.com/getting-it-right-custom-design-should-mean-unique-and-
from-scratch