A fresh website for Australia’s leading creative college
- UX research
- Support
- Hosting
- Web development
- Visual Design
How do you engage the new generation of creative minds in a highly-competitive sector?
The Australian College of the Arts (Collarts) is Australia’s leading creative industries college: home for a new generation of creatives who thrive in the world and in-turn, help the world to thrive.
Collarts offers state-of-the-art facilities and collaborative spaces in the heart of Melbourne’s vibrant creative community.
They are an independent college offering certificates, diplomas, degrees and graduate courses in a wide range of creative disciplines. More than 2,000 students from over 30 countries study with Collarts.
Collarts engaged Calico to plan and pitch a new modern site which was visually and functionally up to standard with the needs of the staff and students. We then worked with their branding agency to design and develop this highly engaging website.
Formulating Requirements
Collarts approached Calico initially to help them formulate the requirements for their new website. Our discovery team collaborated with their experts to create a detailed tender document, which outlined their vision for a modern, highly usable and feature-rich website.
We conducted several workshops prior to pitching a build and solution. These were for the benefit of all parties to consolidate objectives, usability parameters and features.
Discovery & Information Architecture
As we created the requirements document, Calico was already armed with a deep knowledge of the technical requirements for the new Collarts website.
We undertook Competitor Analysis, Staff Interviews, Traffic Analysis and an extensive Information Architecture process. With several workshops, our design team and Collart’s experts created a logical and intuitive structure - the foundation of the new website.
Design & User Experience
Calico then designed detailed wireframes based on our research and understanding of the Collarts audience requirements. Simplicity was the essence of our designs; you can experience this now on the live website.
We collaborated with their branding agency to bring the wireframes to life, the bold colours, typography and imagery.
The new website was built on Umbraco 13 (the latest long-term-support version of Umbraco) in order to deliver a modern website which was easy to use for Collarts staff and provided a great experience for students.
In order to cater to domestic and international students, we built the website so that visitors could easily toggle their ‘international’ status on or off, and the content would seamlessly change accordingly.
A robust library of components (accordion, images, videos etc.) were created to allow Collarts the flexibility to add pages and content to the site as needed.
As well as being able to find courses through the header menu and standard website search, we created a robust search just for courses, with several different categories and filters so that students could find the perfect course for them.
Technology & Integrations
The new website integrated with Collarts’ CRM and their course management software. We ensured that the build was easy to manage and adaptable to all aspects of the existing website, particularly for staff and those managing the CMS. We ensured that Collarts could embed videos and embed forms into the website, as these were important for them to retain in their existing forms.
Outcome
The end result was a success that boasted engagement uplift across all evaluative factors. We were especially impressed with the mobile scroll engagement time which increased 110% as well as course conversion rates boosting by 32%.
The collaboration alongside Collarts’ design agency also enhanced the project’s success. Matching finessed high-fidelity wireframes with development-ready designs, we were able to collectively deliver on the wants and needs of the client.
A foundational strongsuit throughout this project has been the communication, resource allocation and thorough specifications across all deliverables, across our team internally and with all stakeholders. Working with another agency is always a challenge that reaps spectacular rewards and we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to enhance our knowledge and capabilities thanks to this project.
You can check out the website here.
