A conscientious redesign & rebuild for Red Bus Nursery
Redesign and build of a WordPress website into a polished Umbraco site that will grow with the business
arrow_upward Performance
Website is no longer bloated and loading times are faster
arrow_downward Costs
Client no longer requires a (WordPress) Maintenance Package
The Brief
Red Bus Nursery, an award winning childcare setting, came to us and our partner, Ralph Media, asking to rebuild and update their existing WordPress website as it had become unmanageable, clunky, and appeared static and dated. A massive image gallery was slowing the site down and needed to be better managed.
Red Bus also had a large amount of content to update along with an additional requirement to add a secondary website dedicated to recruitment which was to piggy back off the main website.
The Process
The development team spent a good amount of time rejigging the navigation and mapping out the user journeys. The layout and navigation was messy often with multiple links to the same content (or worse… duplicated content!) The team identified a number of areas that would improve the end user experience and by changing the content hierarchy, adding a second navigation, removing duplicated content, and streamlining the user journey, the information was now clear and easily accessible.
A key restructure to the navigation and content was the removal of the unmanageable image gallery which was used by staff at Red Bus to document weekly activities at each of the 3 nursery settings. Weekly uploads of 40+ photos over the course of many years caused the WordPress plugin to struggle with the load and required regular maintenance. By replacing this with a news post/blog style feed we removed the heavy data content and could display the recent activities and images in clear, concise posts.
Red Bus were already happy with the overall style of the original website design which heavily featured the Red Bus logo, so, Ralph Media took these existing designs and developed them further to give the website more life, interest, and a modern feel. Our creative team added a moving red bus over a parallax background in the hero banner to give the illusion of moving along a journey. They also added interest to the footer of the website to compliment the header and created a clear layout allowing information to be easily displayed.
A major requirement was the design and build of the new Careers website which Red Bus wished to be ‘bolted on’ to the main nursery site. The new site had to blend seamlessly with the existing one and mirror the design and layout. Using Umbraco we simply reused all the main content themes and were able to block build most of the site using the existing blocks, and for the sections we were unable to duplicate we hand coded new. A big part of this Careers website was an integration with Red Bus' HR application. We developed the site to pull vacancies from the 3rd party software, and integrated the pre-existing application form.
The Outcomes
Having switched from WordPress to Umbraco the staff at Red Bus are now able to manage the backend management of the website with ease! The unwieldy WordPress gallery plugin is now a thing of the past and has been replaced with an easy to update post. Staff with the correct user levels can login, upload the weeks activities & images, and then publish to the main site.
The restructure of the website means parents and staff are able to easily access the information on the website. The website runs a lot faster than the original with better efficiency and less user frustration.
The addition of the careers website created a pathway for applicants to apply for jobs available at all 3 nursery settings.
Ongoing Support
The general maintenance of both the Red Bus Nursery and Red Bus Careers websites is little to none - which is great for the client! We are however constantly working with the team to add new features as both websites grow and evolve. Recently we added a chatbot to the Careers website as a ‘call to action’ for prospective applicants and for the recruitment team to be ‘on hand’ should visitors have any questions.
We also supported the integration of ‘Childcare Connect’ into Umbraco to automate the enquiry forms into the clients CRM and digitised their application form process, which you can imagine, involving children, is very thorough.
We’ve been so pleased with the work Mohunky have done on our new websites. Their knowledge, enthusiasm and communication have been top notch from the start – we were never kept out of the loop, and felt our voices were heard and respected during the entire process. They have been incredibly understanding and supportive as we continue to update our website, and are quick to help when we have questions.
The move to Umbraco from Wordpress was seamless and has had so many benefits for our team. We have been empowered to make changes, upload photos and videos easily, and keep the website fresh and exciting. With Mohunky’s support and advice, it’s also much easier to keep on top of the many images we upload on a weekly basis. We’re excited to continue working with them as we plan future projects!
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