Broward County Schools’ Get Involved in Education Web Site Redesign Project

The Office of Parents, Business and Community Partnerships for the Broward County School Board is responsible for six key departments within the school system that oversee district's more than 45,400 volunteers, 2,350 school level partners, mentors, special events and parent involvement. Each month, the sites receive more than 30,000 visits.

Background

Get Involved in Education www.getinvolvedineducation.com is the main umbrella site for Broward County School’s Office of Parents, Business and Community Partnerships. Within that department there are six offices, each responsible for a facet of the overall program.

The sites are a frequently accessed hub of information and resources for parents, school employees, volunteers and mentors as well as the community at large and school partners. The department’s small staff and high volume of site traffic necessitated that users have easy access to the information housed within the sites. The umbrella and sub sites needed
a redesign that would allow them to better interact with users and give each department its own identity while still keeping each site linked together to demonstrate their cohesiveness.

Over the course of two years, Micro Jenisys redesigned each of the sub sites as well as the umbrella site. 

www.getinvolvedineducation.com   www.getinvolvedineducation.com/parents   www.getinvolvedineducation.com/volunteers   www.getinvolvedineducation.com/district_partners   www.getinvolvedineducation.com/screening   www.browardpartners.com   www.getinvolvedineducation.com/mentors

Challenges

Working on the sites presented a few challenges. Due to the economy and limited school budgets, it was important to district staff that no school board funds be used to underwrite the development of the web sites. Instead, sponsorship dollars generated through special event activities were used to cover the costs of the redesign project. Even so, the client had a very limited budget for the seven web sites they wanted. In addition, each of the seven sites needed unique elements and functionality, while still maintaining enough cohesion to tie all of the sites together.

Solutions

Though each site was designed individually, the original design that would be used as the blueprint for all of the sites was thoroughly thought out and planned so that we could accommodate the needs of each department. The sites were designed to be user friendly by including materials that parents, volunteers and community partners request most often.  Photos were also included in the new site designs so the community would be able to see how the department programs directly
benefited the students.

Each site was given its own color scheme and individual personalized design elements while still incorporating structural design commonalities to convey that they all belong to the same office, providing a sense of cohesion for users as they move throughout the site. Over the course of two years, each of the seven sites was built and launched individually
in consecutive order. The extended timeframe gave the client an opportunity to absorb the costs during this development period. It also ensured that each departmental site was allotted the proper amount of attention it required during its own design and launch process.

Results and Next Steps

The sites were completed and launched between March 2008 and August 2009. Each department has expressed their pleasure with the redesign and has received positive feedback from their users. Micro Jenisys provides ongoing site maintenance on all of the sites, recently completing a mini-facelift on the sites by replacing images and content to
give the sites a refresh in advance of the 2009/2010 school year. Lastly, as a courtesy to this loyal client, we produce web usage reports each month showing user activity and traffic for each site.

– The MJ team

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