Roncalli College

What was unique about the Roncalli College website design project?

Roncalli College was a huge challenge because of the amount of content and information we needed to publish.

We needed to showcase the different subjects, sports, special character and general information about the school. We also needed to make this information easy to read and understand, be interactive and delivered in a useful way. The website needed to be attractive and engaging.

Considering the site would be accessed by a number of users, teachers, students, parents and information seekers, how did you organise the content of the site so it was easily accessible to everyone?

First, we worked from the existing site, looking at every page. We heavily used sticky notes, writing every page name on a note and sticking it on the wall. From there, we were able to sort each page or content piece into an informational grid or category block.

We reviewed all the sticky notes (content) on the wall and decided whether we could remove notes or combined pages together. We tried to get as much of the content refined and into one place.

This process is known as information architecture. Once this was locked in we were able to build the site map and place the content and any new content into their appropriate categories.

How did you find the task of working on a website that already had an existing site with content?

It was challenging because, although we were working with new content, the old content was still useful but needed to be organised and freshened up. Sometimes you can get trapped into how the old site structure was built and developed.

The purpose of creating a new website is to throw the old site away as far as possible and look at it with fresh eyes, from the users’ point of view. This helps to design a user-focused website.

How did you use the colours within the website?

The colours come from the Roncalli College coat of arms and their branding guidelines. We used those existing colours. They were really bold and heavy but bright and exciting. It was fantastic working with such vibrant colours and the bonus was they complemented each other well.

We were able to use the colours throughout the site and as key user interface elements to define different parts of the site.

Roncalli has a lot more content about their history and traditions, how did you find integrating that information with the rest of the academic information?

When looking at all of the site’s content, there were heaps of it so we separated the website into sections. The curriculum section and “about our school” are more about the special character and their history. So we gathered all that content from the old site and put it into different areas. The site had to be easy for the staff to manage and update things. Teachers and students have access to upload content (text and photos) and keep the website up to date.

What are the qualities that enable you to deliver the Roncalli College website?

Looking at the big picture and the overall planning and looking at the website from above is an important quality.

It’s important to look at a website redesign with a fresh perspective and give it purpose and direction.

Keeping the user in focus and at the centre of the process and to look at how they would interact with the website, helped with the success of the website design especially.

Communication throughout the project was extremely valuable and listening with Roncalli College in the initial project discussions and getting the needed information and knowing what they were trying to achieve helped us to deliver a well-rounded project.