Responsive design and Umbraco 7 integration

Brief

To create a responsive website with a design that appeals to supporters, parents and children while representing CU’s values, activities and projects. Children’s University wanted a fresh look that’s clean and effective.

CHALLENGE

We needed to achieve a balance between their tech-savvy audiences and those who are not that experienced, like younger children or grandparents, for helping them navigate effortlessly.

We’ve taken a different design approach from the last version of the website, which we aimed more towards the students by featuring appealing elements such as the hand-drawn animation and bright colours.

The new design projects a more corporate image which helps attract business and learning partners, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously so that it will still appeal to children.

The big challenge was to simplify the previous text-heavy website without removing any important information, especially on the homepage. The new design emphasises the charming imagery CU has, which is why many pages feature large landing blocks and interactive banner sliders.

Results

The new website uses the latest version of Umbraco which gives power to the content editors, who can now create their own layouts. The CMS is easy to use allowing editor’s to focus on what’s important to them.

The website also works alongside with Children’s University’s E-Passport. The E-Passport is an online tool that CU students use to add and track their completed learning activities. We have linked the solutions together to help save the content editors time as E -Passport will automatically update the Learning Destinations and local CUs on the website.

The Learning Destination search, allows visitors to activities from over 80 learning destinations based on location, keyword or interest. There are also quick links on the homepage that make it easier for parents to plan fun and educational days out as their children to work towards their CU Graduation.

10 Digital offers the Children’s University comprehensive support and development based on a detailed understanding of our business – they have helped us grow from a base of local centres in England to a UK-wide and international organisation.
Lynne Upton Head of CU Learning Support and Development