We built a multi-function WordPress website for Yarra Ranges Tech School (Box Hill Institute), promoting the Victorian State Government Education Facility.
Yarra Ranges Tech School (Box Hill Institute) is a shared learning hub which delivers leading-education programs using the latest technology in a real-world context to students from their 20 partner schools around the Yarra Ranges region. Hosted by Box Hill Institute, Yarra Ranges Tech School brings together secondary schools, industry, community and tertiary stakeholders through education programs, guest speakers, workshops, co-working and maker spaces. The Yarra Ranges Tech School is a Victorian State Government funded initiative.
After many months of hard works, we’re excited to showcase the freshly reimagined Yarra Ranges Tech School website, designed & developed by the Spacey Studios team. We’re stoked to unveil the culmination of our creative efforts, designed to provide a seamless and engaging digital experience for our valued client, Yarra Ranges Tech School.
Our latest project with the tech school revolved around a comprehensive overhaul of the Yarra Ranges Tech School‘s online presence. The primary objective was clear – to rebuild their existing website from the ground up with contemporary aesthetics, user-friendly navigation, and cross-device responsiveness, catering to a diverse audience including students, teachers & parents, industry partners and the wider local community.
Central to our approach was the meticulous consideration of the distinct needs of various user segments. As a result, the YRTS website has been thoughtfully organised into four essential segments: Schools, Partners, Community, and Media. Each unique segment boasts relevant content that speaks directly to its intended audience, ensuring the swift access of information for each user.
This strategic content organisation ensures that users can effortlessly locate relevant information without sifting through the vast range of content that doesn’t relate to them. Industry partners can readily access specialised resources, while the broader community can seamlessly engage with public events and news updates. Likewise, the school community can find information about student programs, workshops, events and more.
Beneath the sleek surface of the website resides a robust and intricate framework. The YRTS website features a diverse range of CMS types, each thoughtfully integrated to serve the unique requirements of its relevant audience. The site was built with advanced filters, custom data fields, and an elaborate sitemap housing hundreds of pages. Despite this complexity, the site’s navigation remains intuitive and user-friendly to all visitors.
Our design philosophy, coupled with our keen attention to User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) principles, has resulted in a website that effortlessly marries visual appeal with optimal functionality.
Notably, the entire Yarra Ranges Tech School website was meticulously developed utilising WordPress (CMS) infrastructure. This robust platform facilitated the seamless design, development and integration of diverse content segments and granted Spacey Studios the capability to craft, manage, and update the digital ecosystem with unparalleled ease.
To take the platform further, we integrated WPBakery Builder to the website, which streamlined the process to ensure everything on the website is editable with a user-friendly, drag-and-drop content editor. This eliminates the learning curve for updating content and allows users of all technical skill levels to make instant updates to the website, right when they need them.
The Yarra Ranges Tech School envisioned a digital platform that adapts seamlessly to diverse devices and screen sizes. Our mission was straightforward – ensuring that each breakpoint offers a fluid and uncompromised user experience akin to the desktop version.
Whether you’re navigating from the comfort of your office workstation or on-the-go with your mobile device, the website’s responsive design guarantees an unbroken and immersive browsing experience that adapts to you.
When working within the education space, there’s many essential aspects that must be considered throughout the design stage, but one of the most important considerations is ensuring accessibility for as many users as possible.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) covers a broad range of recommendations for making web content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including accommodations for vision impaired, limited movement, photosensitivity, and a combinations of these, as well as some accommodation for learning disabilities and cognitive limitations.
Across the Yarra Ranges Tech School website, we utilise various WCAG checks to enhance accessibility for users. It’s often a challenge to balance the aesthetic design components with accessible user experience considerations, but we love a good challenge and always strive to produce the best results for our clients and their unique users.
This project serves as a testament to the collective efforts of Spacey Studios and the Yarra Ranges Tech School team. The synergy between our creative expertise and their valuable collaboration as a fantastic client culminated in this digital platform that we are very proud of. It was our pleasure working with the tech school team and we can’t wait to see how they use their website in the future as they load it with various pieces of content that we built the foundations for.
Explore the new website for yourself and see the extensive work that we put into producing this premium, completely custom WordPress site for the Yarra Ranges Tech School.
