Roles
Research | UX Strategy | User Surveys | Branding | Wireframing
The Challenge
Internet is no longer a luxury but a utility, and many schools use this utility to help improve the education process in the classroom. But not every school as access to high speed Internet or the knowledge needed to acquire better Internet connections. Education SuperHighway is the leading non-profit focused on upgrading the Internet access in every public school classroom in America. They believe that digital learning has the potential to provide all students with equal access to educational opportunity and that every school requires high-speed broadband to make that opportunity a reality.
“Digital learning has the potential to provide all students with equal access to educational opportunity.”
The Discovery
While Education SuperHighway has made huge strides in upgrading Internet access in public school throughout America, they still have a number of school districts that don’t meet the minimum requirements. The company has currently focused on working with state agencies, governors and Internet Service Providers to best utilize the FCC E-Rate program to connect schools, but in order to complete their mission they need to expand their presence across the country.
Research & Analysis
To better understand the utilization and perception of digital learning in education, K-12 grade teachers were surveyed to better understand the perception and importance of the Internet's role in schools while also gauging the best direction for the rebranding voice and style.
Education SuperHighway wants to bring Internet access to every classroom in America, but the teachers who see their results first hand have neither heard of them nor their services.
Users
Survey responses were then reviewed to create personas in order to better understand the current attitudes and feelings teachers held towards the subject of the Internet in classrooms and Education Technology itself. These personas highlighted direct quotes from surveys which show the atmosphere of the target users perception of importance towards the offerings that Education SuperHighway works to bring to all classrooms.
The Process
With a better understanding of the end target user and their needs now in focus, it became apparent that brand awareness and personality needed to be restructured in conjunction with a redesign.
In order to the connect the remaining schools, Education SuperHighway must expand their presence to the teachers and other faculty of these remaining schools. To expand to this new audience Education SuperHighway needs a strategy reposition to a more personal and understandable tone as well as a new visual identity to make them more appealing and approachable.
Mind Mapping & Sketching
With a new brand position and target set, a new logo was needed to focus the rebrand. Starting with a morphological matrix, imagery and typography was explored to help best represent what Education SuperHighway is all about.
“Education SuperHighway is the only non-profit that brings high-speed broadband Internet to all schools in America which enables all students to connect to every opportunity possible.”
The Outcome
Visual Styling
Interviews with the teacher demographic showed that while a professional atmosphere and voice are important for brand loyalty, a friendly and playful styling are best matched for attracting this new audience. These reasons help influence the rounded vector styling, offset color blocks, and bold rounded typography all within thin framed boxes and displayed with a bold serif typeface.
The Website
Education SuperHighway’s website is the main entrance to the organization. It is a robust yet clean design that reflects their ideology with inspirational storytelling and insightful call to actions. Built with human focused photography, playful imagery and bold colors the website is the most important place where Education SuperHighways complete audience segments - state governments, ISP’s, school districts, and the new focus of school faculty - can learn how to bring Internet to every child in America.
Wireframes
With the new primary audiences identified, the site goals and objectives for each page were made to reflect the new target needs. In this way, the new content strategy makes sure to meet the user experience and interface needs of the many different types of faculty and other users that come to the website.
