White Agency Blog
Brand new website launched for Huddersfield New College
White Agency has recently launched a brand new website for Huddersfield New College which offers full time AS,
A-level and Btec courses to around 2,300 16-18 year olds in Kirklees and the surrounding area.
Having been impressed with the Wyke Sixth Form College website the White Agency had produced, Huddersfield New College approached the agency and asked them to tender for a completely new website as their existing site was out dated in both design and content as well as difficult to navigate and maintain.
There were a number of objectives for the new website which were outlined during the initial consultation period.
The first was that it should promote the extensive enrichment programme and extra-curricular activities the students are encouraged to get involved in, as the college has achieved highly in these areas as well as academically.
The second was that the site should take into consideration all of the stakeholders involved with the college and offer something to everyone, from students to parents, to staff, to the Alumini, Governors of the college as well as the community surrounding the college.
The third objective was that the site should look young, fresh and appealing to new prospective students in order to encourage them to apply for courses.
Finally the main aim was that the website should be easy to update and maintain on a regular basis by administrators at the college via a content management system.
The website is divided into four main sections. ‘Prospective Students’ provides full course details and entry requirements, instructions on how to apply and tells the success stories of students who have studied at the college.
Prospective students are able to select which courses they are interested in and add them to a basket. They can then click to apply and all of the courses they have selected will automatically be detailed within the electronic application form, which is then emailed through to the College.
‘College Life’ provides an insight into daily life at the college and details the facilities, the enrichment programme and extra-curricular activities the students can get involved with. This area of the site also contains a link to the College’s Social Network Twitter account which provides constant updates on activities which are going on within the college.
‘Parent Information’ offers information on examination results, financial assistance, courses and prospective careers whilst the ‘College Information’ section provides details of Governors meetings, staff vacancies and college news.
The design of the website has been kept clean whilst heavily incorporating imagery of the students and their participation in college life. It was felt that as the site was primarily for and about the students and their activities the focus of the design should also be on the students. The navigation has been kept easy to use and the site complies with all the latest Disability Discrimination and Accessibility laws.
All aspects of the site are fully maintainable using the WhiteAgency’s highly flexible content management system. The CMS allows staff to update and maintain content, quickly and easily themselves without having to contact the Agency. Even the background images of the students and page banners can be updated within the CMS so that the site is kept fresh and looking up-to-date at all times.
With all of the objectives met the new Huddersfield New College website was successfully launched at the beginning of April 2011 and had over 40,000 visitors in the first two months.
