Background: Greenhills School is a private college preparatory school for grades 6-12 in Ann Arbor, MI. They pride themselves on being a one-of-a-kind school that not only prepares children for college, but creates an experience unique to the needs and passions of each student. They go beyond traditional schoolwork with their humanities program, exemplary athletics department, and essential learning services to not only set their students up for college success, but life success.
Challenges: Having little prior experience in the UX of landing pages, taking on such a results-driven project was intimidating. As the sole UX researcher and information architect, the effectiveness of the landing page rested on my shoulders. I went through multiple iterations of the landing page before finally "landing" on one that was sure to yield results.
Objective: The objective of this project was to create a landing page and follow-up thank you page that not only showed off Greenhills' one-of-a-kindness and utilized the existing UI on their main site, but also strategically encouraged parents of potential students to learn more about Greenhills School, with the end goal of submitting a contact form to their admissions team.
Results: Upon launch, Greenhills School saw an increase in leads to the admissions team directly from the landing page. Personally, I was able to dive in and learn a lot about the strategy behind the user experience when it comes to landing pages and how something as simple as a simplified footer and increased white space can turn a user into a lead.
Greenhills' One-of-a-Kind landing page.
Previous iterations of the landing page.
UX Research: Before designing the landing page, I was tasked with researching and reviewing a multitude of successful and results-driven landing pages in order to optimize Greenhills'. Upon this research, I found some key UX elements and strategies that were proven to generate a higher form conversion rate:
1. Minimize distractions. Landing pages exist for the sole purpose of, in this case, capturing a lead. Reducing external links and minimal navigation items helps the user to not click off of the site or divert their attention to another part of the page.
Application: The navigation features no additional navigation items or links, only the Greenhills School logo, which is not clickable. The footer went through multiple iterations in attempt to keep as much information from the main site as possible. Ultimately, we found that only essential information with no external links lead to less user distractions.
2. Condense form. For the landing page, a form was needed in order to capture leads. Users are less likely to fill out a form asking for an extensive amount of information; keeping the form to only the necessary information (and asking for more data later on) helps to generate a higher form conversion rate.
Placing the form to the bottom of the landing page also allows users to take in the information needed to decide whether or not they want to learn more about Greenhills without rushing them.
Application: The lead form consists of only five fields (four of which are required) and is at the bottom of the landing page.
3. White space utilization. White space is a powerful tool that allows us to control what the user focuses on. By keeping the design clean with plenty of white space, the user is able to focus more on the information given to them, rather than being distracted by other elements of the page.
4. Clear and concise copy. Straightforward copy not only allows for more white space (see #3), it also keeps the user focused rather than having them scan through redundant copy. Clear copy also allows the user to easily understand who Greenhills is and what their value propositions are.
Application: The amount of copy on the landing page went through multiple iterations. Initially, the requested amount of copy was overwhelming to the user and cluttered the page. The final iteration not only has copy that was concise, but the copy clearly articulates who Greenhills is and what their value propositions are in a way that's easy for the user to digest.
Final landing page for Greenhills School.
In addition to the landing page, a Thank You page was created once the user had successfully filled out the form. This page included a button that leads to Greenhills' main site.
UX Research, Information Architecture, and UI Design as a Web Designer at Studio Pence
2021 © Greenhills School
2021 © Greenhills School