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David's Swim School
This project involved a complete redesign of the website, updating its layout and structure to enhance user experience, with the navbar being a unique feature. The new design allows customers the ability to learn more about the swimming academy
David's Swim School, located in Coral Springs, Florida, offers comprehensive swimming instruction for individuals of all ages, including infants, children, adults, seniors, and those with special needs. With over 45 years of experience under the guidance of an Olympic coach, the school emphasizes water safety and drowning prevention. Their state-of-the-art indoor facility features a heated pool maintained at 91°F, providing a comfortable environment for year-round learning. The school also supports the Drowning Prevention Florida Foundation, offering services to low-income families and individuals with special needs across Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties.
Problem Statement
David's Swim School, a longstanding academy dedicated to drowning prevention in Coral Springs, faced significant challenges with its original website. The outdated WordPress site was riddled with issues: missing links, outdated resources, and branding that failed to effectively represent the school. The goal was to identify what could be salvaged and rebuild the site to align with modern design trends, ensuring it was both scalable and easy to read.
Upon reviewing the existing website, several critical issues were identified:
- Domain and Branding: The site was hosted on a site with limited content and outdated to current design trends
- Outdated Layout: The layout and structure were not only visually outdated but also broken in several places, detracting from usability.
- Lack of Mobile Optimization: The site was not optimized for mobile, failing to meet modern accessibility and usability standards essential for today’s society.
- Missing Key Information: Important resources were absent, such as clear information on mission, values, goals, and resources aimed at giving potential customers more insights into the swim academy.
Understanding Problem
The executive board appointed a development team to identify key issues and implement a solution to deliver a functional website in time for the national convention. Their objectives were as follows:
- Website Development: Design and build a fully operational website, ready for launch before the convention.
- Automated Form Management System: Develop a system that automates the upload and organization of forms and databases to improve efficiency and organization.
- File Standards: Enforce correct naming conventions, limit file formats to PNG, and apply size restrictions to ensure quality and uniformity.
- Workflow Integration: Seamlessly integrate the banner management system into existing workflows, supporting both marketing uploads and technical integration needs.
- Form Management: Design form integration using a backend database for students interested in joining the organization.
Drafting Solution
The solution involved the following steps:
I collaborated with the marketing team to define a clear naming convention for banners (e.g., b-in-store-c.png for an in-store carousel banner).
User Interface
To improve usability, I developed a user interface (UI) for the page.
This UI allowed users to:
- Browse and select the webpage containing the resources required of the user.
- Create a friendly environment for the user experience
- Allowed easy access to different resources in a matter of seconds, less than 3 taps to reach the required resource.
- Created a page for users to engage in events/activities that occur frequently in the club, allows the user/student to easily see when/where events take place without having to lose time asking around.
Overall Impact
This UI solution successfully fixed the original issues from the old website. The UI was not only visually overhauled and improved but significantly reduced the time and effort required by both the marketing and technical teams and the average user.
Final Result
User-Centered Design:
This project highlighted the importance of user-centered design principles even when creating solutions for internal workflows. The UI's development ensured a smooth user experience for the product team interacting with the script.
Product Designer Contribution:
This case study emphasizes the potential for product designers to contribute beyond UI/UX design. Skills in scripting and automation can enhance process efficiency and streamline workflows.
Beyond the immediate benefits, this project yielded valuable insights for future endeavors:
- Embedded calendar card system, instead of a basic calendar UI, the card allows users to click on the event and add it to their calendar.
- Cleaner form integration for the user.
Reception & Feedback
Before implementing the redesign, the owners provided valuable input to enhance the site’s appeal for customers. Key elements were added to make it easier for visitors to learn about drowning prevention, which became central to the website’s structure. After several drafts, the owners were thrilled with the final result, and customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
