The Client Goal

Northwest Association of Independent Schools (NWAIS) aims to help schools to provide high-quality education for children. They needed visual communication on their website to evangelize independent schools, compare the types of independent schools available, and explain the unique qualities of NWAIS, all in an accessible package that would appeal to parents. It was important to the organization that the tone of this piece remain humble while highlighting agility of independent schools. The aesthetic needed to be clean and mature, not cartoonish, to avoid trivializing the importance of the topic.

The Solution

To meet these requirements, we created an intuitive interactive design that answers common questions about independent schools in general and NWAIS specifically. We were able to use images from the organization’s photography collection to enhance impact — it can be challenging to integrate photos with iconography and data visualization, so the result kept them fairly distinct to avoid visual chaos. The copy focuses on facts rather than persuasive techniques, so users can be primarily influenced by the data. The top navigation lets users click between tabs and return to previously viewed tabs if desired, while the bottom navigation offers additional resources elsewhere on the NWAIS site — these pop up in a separate tab so that users don’t lose their place in the experience. Additionally, by offering 4 main categories on separate tabs, the interactive design as a whole can remain clean instead of struggling to combine several topics in 1 space.