All the new demands and needs that came along with the year 2021 require a strong communication channel, and school websites are the most effective communication channels, people who seek very precise, accurate, and up-to-date information, prefer to visit a website rather than visiting social media platforms. This is why school websites have become more important than ever before. It also begs the question, how to design a school website that can satisfy both the parents and the management too. Here are the must-have school website features in 2021:

1. Easy Navigation and Accessibility

Before we talk about any design type, the very first thing that a school must have is a very simple and easy navigation structure. There are so many different navigation types and styles, however, the very important thing is to understand and categorize the most important information first. A school website is not only a school’s online profile, it is an informational website and it also provides various online functionalities. Each and every section and feature of the website serves a purpose. The navigation should be designed in a way that all the information are available in a certain flow, for example, if I want to learn about the classes, the next step I would like to learn about the extra-curriculum activities or sports for that class, then the teachers then the fee structure and so on. Everything should be available in a flow, either all the courses should be combined in a category, and all of the other activities in one category, the fee and transport should be organized in one category and so on.

There is no hard and fast rule of how you categorize different sections of the website, however, there should be synchronism and harmony, the relevant information should be interconnected, the visitor must not have to go through several pages to reach one type of information and then again a few more for the next information they are expecting to learn about even if both information types are categorized differently. The large menus, multi-layer style, inverted L-type, horizontal, vertical embedded, etc. are all different types of standard navigation, however, the navigation and accessibility is something you have to be a little bit creative and innovative. The main objective here is to never let the flow break. The information should be available in a complete and planned flow. Think from the visitor’s point of view and arrange all the pages and information in a way that after viewing one chunk the next expected chunk should be available. This is how the navigation of a school website should be designed.

2. Homepage with Full-width Landing Screen

The homepage is the main page of a website, as in Dubai and all around the UAE, everyone has access to the high-speed internet whether it is a mobile phone or at home or office, this gives the designer confidence for designing visually rich and graphics-intensive web designs. One of the trends that got traction in the late 2020 and is very popular in 2021 is the homepage with a full-width landing screen design. The landing screen is the very first screen of the homepage whenever a user opens a website. This is a very important area of the design. The studies have shown that a typical user takes less than a second to build an image of a brand or business by viewing its website. For school websites, the first landing screen is critically important to keep the user scroll further. The full-width landing screen can have an image slider, a 3D visual look and feel, and a video or animation too. However as the school website is more for informational purposes rather than design impression, so we always recommend an image slider or an animated background with multiple important sections of the website highlighted on it.

In Dubai mostly businesses are adopting a minimalistic design approach which is excellent if you have a strong tagline or sales pitch, however for a school website it is not as that simple. For a school website if you want to convert a prospect into a lead you must have to provide them information on certain topics, which when combined, only then could influence the decision. In addition to that, a school website is not only designed for a single group of audience, in fact, there are three distinct groups of the audience are there. The main targeted audience is the parent who is seeking admissions, then the parent whose kids are already enrolled, and then the students, in some cases school websites also host teacher’s portals. That is why this section should be critically planned to cater the information for each audience group as per their priority. The material that appeals to all audiences should be visible, rather than buried underneath several slides, because usually the last few slides never got attention from the users, so it is important to have all the information available at the first glance.

3. Focus on E-Learning or Online Classes

That is a bit unusual trend for traditional school websites. However, as we all know the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our general behavior and all the safety precautions and policies have affected not only the schools but all sectors and industries. Online learning or e-learning has become a new norm for even traditional schools too. As schooling has been completely changed, the school must consider the needs, demands, and expectations of the parents and students as well. These days in Dubai and all around the UAE parents whether their kids are already enrolled in the school or whether they are planning for a new admission, all will expect information about online schooling or e-learning. Online schooling is getting mixed responses, some parents are appreciating it and some are not. The fact is for some times the online schooling was optional and for some times it was completely compulsory, as the schools were completely shut and only online classes were conducted.

So, parents are also thinking that maybe in the future this could happen again, however, things are getting better, thanks to the vaccination campaign and strict government policies to implement social distancing and other health and safety regulations the situation is under control now. In fact, UAE is the world’s first country with the most vaccinations and efficient control over the pandemic. But still, no one can predict the future, and parents are also concerned. So, having clear information about online classes or e-learning is crucial for a school website in 2021. The most important aspect of going online is online admissions, it is important to have short, easy, and clear online admission features on your school website. Online forms downloading and uploading are also very important along with online courses and details of the teachers. Another most important thing is to provide information about the process of getting online classes, which is, unfortunately, missing from almost all school websites in Dubai, UAE. Such information and the feature will not only encourage the new admissions but will also build confidence and trust for the existing students and their parents.

4. Content is King

Yes, content is always king, a web design without good content is like a car without any engine. The same applies to the school websites too. A school website must have all the required information along with key features and key points that can attract new admissions. The content is also very important for the existing students and their parents. A website is a great tool for branding, however, in the case of a school or educational institution, the website must also provide all relevant and required information for their audience. Sometimes such information is provided in a plain text format, sometimes with the aid of multimedia content, and sometimes in form of downloadable content. Whatever the case is all the information should be provided in a well-organized way and should be accessible for the visitors. The content should be in simple and plain language. In Dubai and all around the UAE as we know the society comprises nationals and ex-pats, the ex-pats are from the various backgrounds so having a multi-lingual school website could be a great competitive advantage to appeal to more online leads and conversions.

Here are some key content types and features that usually users expect from a school website:

1. Information about the school, mission vision, about section
2. Information about the courses and curriculum
3. Teachers Information and profiles
4. Facility Information such as a library, labs, sports, etc.
5. Admission process, fee structure
6. Online Admission process and online payment
7. Downloadable forms
8. Announcements, Events, News and Updates
9. Calendar and key dates
10. Work sample of the students, their achievements, and their capabilities
11. Location, contact details, staff directory, etc.
12. Social Media Integration, Feeds, or Links

These are just a few basic examples of the content and materials a parent/student would expect from a school website. The school management and the website designer must have to do thorough research to establish a content policy and then incorporate it into the web design to ensure maximum online leads and conversions.

5. Responsive and Cross-Platform Compatibility

Responsive or mobile-friendly web design is a must-have feature in 2021 for any website. As the stats show people spend more time on their smartphones than on traditional computers and laptops. Here in UAE everyone owns a smartphone, people use them to connect through social media and online, people make purchases from their mobile and surf the internet. This is what makes it mandatory for all websites to be able to work well on mobiles or smartphones. The smartphones have a very small screen as compared to the laptop or desktops, however, there is only a limit at what we can shrink the web pages and reduce the size of the content and fonts. This is why if a non-compatible website is opened from the smartphone it looks very small, in fact, the user will have to zoom in to be able to read the text, which completely destroys the user experience. However, if a website is compatible with smartphones and is designed to be mobile-friendly then it will automatically render itself as per the screen size and will rearrange various design elements and sections to maintain the user experience.

With the availability of so many different devices such as smartphones, tablets, Windows computers, MAC, and a variety of different browser software, cross-platform compatibility and responsiveness become very important. Different operating systems works on different technologies, similarly different browsers, and smartphones, and their operating systems too work on different technologies and platforms. The websites are made up of so many different types of source code and scripts, and each platform executes them differently. This means that different sections of the website could appear differently on different platforms. In order to completely eliminate this effect or minimize it, there are certain methods and techniques used while designing and developing/programming the website. These techniques will help the website to maintain the same user experience on all platforms to improve user experience.

6. Search Engine Optimization – SEO

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a very powerful digital marketing strategy. It could ensure long-term success in the digital world. Above all points were related to the user and user experience, the SEO is completely related to the search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. If a website is built on SEO standards and is properly optimized for search engines then it can produce a lot of organic traffic from the search engine, which traffic can be converted through the website. For example, if anyone searches ‘schools in Dubai’ or ‘schools in Abu Dhabi’ then the search engine go through the schools’ websites and arrange them as per their ratings and whoever is at the top of that rating will appear on the first page. The data suggests, almost 70% of the traffic goes to the websites listed on the first page of SERP. The SERP is a technical term and it means ‘search engine result page’. And out of that 70% more than half goes to the top 3 websites. Now one can imagine how much traffic a search engine can generate for a school website if the website is SEO friendly.

There are so many different techniques and methods to make a website SEO friendly. Popular search engine such as Google has dedicated software, called ‘bots’ or ‘spiders’. These bots go through each and every website on the internet, they scan them, rate their content, identify their category, detect their regions or areas of operations and capture a lot more data from direct and indirect sources to rate a single website. There are certain web designing and development technologies that are not SEO friendly and when a ‘spider’ or ‘bot’ scans the website it gets blocked partially or in some cases fully. It means that for Google such websites are totally empty, if the search engine failed to read any content from the website they cannot categorize/index them or rate them and they will not include it in the SERP page. So, it is extremely important that a school website must be SEO friendly and should have all the required indicators for Google and other search engines in its source code to let them index and rate it.

Read More: Website Trends for School in 2021

Conclusion

A school website has become a very important medium especially after the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2020. As we all know in 2021 still the schools and educational institutions are either fully or partially conducting classes online. So, more and more parents are turning to the school website to get more information. The offices and public relations at schools are also close, so people are also visiting the websites. It is very crucial to follow basic standards and provide certain features if you want to keep the parents and students happy, these features will also help a school to convert more online prospects into valid leads and sales. The navigation and accessibility of the information is at the top as people expect information from a school website, either it is about the online classes, curriculum, course outline, new admissions, online classes, online admissions or any such details. People seek information, but the homepage and the landing screen should also have to be very captivating to impress the visitors.

The content of the website and certain features that help the parents and students to perform certain tasks are also very helpful. In fact, parents tend to be very hesitant to enroll their kids in schools that don’t have clear COVID-19 working protocols and information about their online classes. Moreover, a school website must have to be mobile-friendly, a responsive design must also have cross-platform compatibility to ensure the ultimate user experience. Such features will give you a great competitive edge. The online conversions and lead generation is also deepening on usability and design of your school website. If you are seeking to upgrade your existing school website or want a complete revamp feel free to reach us out through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Website Trends for Hospitals in 2021

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Since most of the schools and educational institutes are online, so a school website has become a very strong marketing tool as well. Schools can use their websites to improve their brand image. The school websites are also a great platform to market their facilities and courses online and get more online conversions/admissions. The school websites can be designed to facilitate the online enrollment process, or online registrations, the marketing material could be hosted on the website to attract more attention from the targeted audience. The website is available 24/7, rather parents have to plan a visit to the school to get the required pre-admission information, and they can simply go to the school website to get access to such information. Moreover, the schools can easily advertise their marketing materials on the website. In addition to all that, the school websites can also provide separate portals for students, parents, and teachers to make the management of online or regular operations simpler and easier for the school management and everyone else.

Here are some emerging website trends for schools in 2021:

The Full-Width Landing Screen Homepage

The homepage in any web design is the most important part of a website. For school websites, the homepage is even more important as it is targeting totally different audiences, the parents, the students, and the teachers. Here the school management should decide which part needs what proportion or portion of the homepage. The landing screen of any web design is the very first screen that renders when you open a web link. For homepage, mostly contains an image slider or multimedia section with attractive sales pitches, the logo of the brand, navigations/menus, and some other useful links. Traditionally the multimedia section occupies only 40 to 50 percent of the very first landing screen of the homepage. However, in the year 2021, the web design trends are changing and we are viewing the full-width landing screens more often. For school websites, the full width landing screen contains, taglines, images, or multimedia content occupying almost 80 percent of the screen and menus/navigations.

This is not a completely new trend, other business sectors have started to adopt this web trend a few years ago. The full width landing screen homepage designs have proven to be more impactful and effective for online conversions. As the schools are also seeking more online conversions and admission through their websites, so they are also starting to adopt the trend. Usually, there are multiple sliders placed in the homepage’s first landing screen. Which provides catchy information for the key points of sales for the school such as their features, facilities, teachers, and other important factors that can encourage the parents and students to take admission.

Parallax or Interactive Scrolling

Parallax or interactive scrolling is a web design technique very popular in Dubai and all around the UAE. The interactive scrolling means that the website responds to the scroll and populates design elements in an animated movement as the user keeps scrolling through the web page. The parallax or interactive scrolling enables businesses to design and develop extremely user-centric interactive layouts. For school websites as the audiences’ demographics is very diverse so the design should be programmed to improve the user experience for all. Basically, this is achieved with different approaches sometimes, there are several layers that are overlapping each other and with the scrolling, each layer moves at a different pace, sometimes it is altogether a new layout appearing in an animated movement and replacing the previous sections. In some cases, the web designers use parallax to scroll the web page in both horizontal and vertical directions.

There are so many different methods and techniques used to design a user experience that is not possible with any traditional web design technique. The main objective is to enhance the user experience, improve the visual impact of the web design and make it more engaging for the visitors. Most of our daily internet surfing is subconscious, but not entirely because eventually, the user will try to find the content they are looking for. The way our brain works is very complex our brain processes the background and foreground separately, the visuals with depth alert our brain to pay more attention, which is what the web designer exploits with the parallax or interactive scrolling. Here the important thing to understand is that the parallax and animated visuals can increase the loading time as well. There is always a disagreement between the web designers about the user attentions above the fold or below the fold, however, the parallax designs or interactive scrolling minimize this effect. It encourages the users to keep scrolling until the bottom occurs. This way the user is compelled to absorb more content from the web page which definitely increases the chance of the online conversion.

Micro Interactions

By definition, micro-interactions are the highly visual changes in the user interface which are triggered by a user action or a change in the system. In terms of web designs, micro-interactions are extremely useful to improve user engagements and user experience. The user experience is very important in any web design, for school websites the user experience will make the website more memorable and more attractive for the visitors. The micro-interactions create a very interactive user interface that reacts to each move of the user and maintain their interest in the web page for longer. The human brain automatically pays more attentions to the moving visuals than static imagery. The micro interactions are made out of small design elements that move or change or response to the users whenever the users move their cursor on them.

Such interactive design elements keep the user engaged. This way the users can absorb more content without getting bored or uninterested. Another great advantage of a well-crafted user interface is that it gives an impression of higher standards and good brand quality. The micro interactions are very easy to build, they don’t overload the web page, the loading speed remains under control and there is no such disadvantage. The only thing that could bother your users is the overdoing of the micro interactions. If a user interface is very highly responsive and very reactive then the chances are user might feel too many motion and they could get repelled from the website.

Fonts, Color Schemes and Content

Fonts and color schemes put life into the web design and the content is considered to be the backbone of the website. The popular fonts and color schemes in Dubai, UAE are the mid-size regular fonts with logo or brand identity based color scheme. However, in the year 2021 this trend is changing, the simplest fonts are taking over the fancy or stylish fonts. The color schemes are also chosen as a combination of the colors of the brand identity and contrast to it. The major focus of the color schemes and the fonts is to maximize the readability of the textual content. These days as most of the web users are coming from smartphones and mobile devices the colors and fonts are deliberately chosen to support the user experience on the mobile devices.

The content is always a king. However this perception is changing slightly, earlier there was a trend of having a content intense website, which offers tons of textual content, nowadays people are more declined towards graphics, visuals, and multimedia content rather the textual content. However, the taglines and short sales pitches can do wonders. These days’ people prefer to read short descriptions and headings, rather long articles. It is important to choose the content mindfully and make it as appealing as possible. The textual content not only should be able to describe your important sales points but it should also be able to caught attentions. Use easy-to-understand and easy vocabulary. The images, multimedia and visual content should be designed to target specific audiences rather generic. The design can force a visitor to explore the website further but it is the content that can influence their decision to hit the CTA (call-to-action) button.

Navigation and Accessibility

The website navigation and accessibility of the content is extremely important for a successful web design. There are certain ways a school website can be designed to improve the navigation and accessibility. The first and most commonly used method in Dubai, UAE is the usage of menus. There could be different designs and styles of the menus that can help to improve user experience. In 2021 the all-in-one or one-stop-shop menu type is gaining popularity is it is also the best menu type for such websites. The menu can be created in multiple layers, all the links and sub-links can be categorized in a well-organized way, the main categories can be listed on the left side in a column and the sub-categories and sub-sections can be populated in adjacent columns. This way multi-layer menu can be designed and all of the important categories and their internal links can be presented in a well-organized and easy-to-access way. The CTA or call-to-action should be

Apart from the menu there are other methods too to link internal pages or sub-pages of the school website at the homepage. The most common method is to use anchor texts and hyperlinks. Headings can be linked too and certain design elements or landmarks can be linked too to the internal pages to improve navigation. Furthermore in the internal pages and sub-pages the breadcrumbs can be used. Usually we don’t see breadcrumbs in schools or corporate sites, but these are very helpful for navigation especially for the cases when you have multiple different audiences to target and have dedicated sections on the website for those audiences. The sticky icons in the side navigation panes also provide an excellent quick access to important section or features of the website. The portals and log-in links can also be provided on the top or bottom of the web page. The navigation is an extremely crucial part of a school website as such websites usually have tons of information which can be scattered on so many different internal pages and internal sections.

SEO Friendly School Website

Another most popular trend of the year 2021 is the SEO (search engine optimization) friendly school websites. The search engines have become a very important part of our daily life for example yesterday I was trying to register and upload some documents for verification using a smartphone app, I tried for almost an hour but each time it returned some error, I looked it up in the Google, found a video and all was done in almost ten minutes. That is how much we are relying on searching and Google. Similarly when it comes to the admission of our kids, we first try to search in the internet, then we talk with our family and friends, we read reviews, see website appearance and read the history and vision of the school, and all such things before making a decision. If your school website is up-to-the-mark. You have a great web design, excellent content and everything is super-great, but when someone searches for the ‘schools in Dubai’ any such term, your website doesn’t appear in the results.

What does this mean? It means whoever is searching for schools in Google is unable to reach to your website and your potential customers/students are landing on the competitors’ websites. This mean you are completely out of the race, at least here in the search engine. This could have a huge impact on your revenue. The websites that appears in the first page or maybe in second page got more clicks, in fact almost 70 percent of the clicks are going to the websites in the top 5 results. But if you have a proper SEO friendly website, it was developed as per the SEO standards and is a completely SERO Friendly school website, it will automatically start appearing in the search results. With the passage of time, it will start climbing in the ranks and a time will come when it will be at the top of the search engine results page or SERP. Which means it could potentially take 40 to 50 percent of the traffic coming from Google and all that is without paying a single additional dime. Image how it will boost your conversions and revenue.

Detailed Footer

The footer of a website is usually the least focused place in the entire web design. In the year 2021 in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses have acknowledged the importance of the footer, businesses from different sectors, especially corporate sector are utilizing footers to boost their web designs and user experience. The school websites are no exception, these days in Dubai the schools are also enlarging their website’s footers to include more useful information. There are certain must have elements in a footer of a website such as copyright statement, links for privacy policy, terms of use, contact page and list of important products and services along with the contact details and address, etc.

However the footers are transitioning from only a bored space with bunch of links and text, to a proper design appeal. The designs are made to attract users to certain information, providing them useful links, forms, sign-in/sign-up, social media links and much more. The footers are also including the sitemaps, not the entire sitemap but a list of all major pages which is not only improving the navigation of the web design but it is also helpful for the SEO purposes. Mini galleries, lists of latest blog posts or press releases, interactive widgets and certificates or badges are also included in the footer. Such information is very helpful in improving the brand image and brand identity. Earlier the footers were consuming around 20 to 30 percent of the bottom but now a days from anywhere 60 percent to a full width footer are becoming trendy. The footer is a very useful space and studies shows a lot many users scroll to the footers to find information about the business.

Conclusion

The year 2021 is a revolutionary year in web design in Dubai. We have witnessed huge trend changes in a couple of past years. The year 2021 is also praising an entirely new design approach. The overall design language for the user interface and user experience has been transformed with the heavy usage or unconventional scrolling, full-width landing screens, and intensive use of multimedia content. There are certain trends that are dominating almost all sectors and industries however there are some web design trends that are only unique for the school websites and are also happily welcomed by the users and the schools as well. For instance, the parallax design, the micro-interactions, easy-to-navigate layered menus, intensive use of hyperlinks and internal links with various different design approaches to create business-oriented user interfaces. The above-mentioned design trends are the most effective and most popular school website design trends. You can easily build an excellent goal-oriented website for your school by following those web design Dubai trends. If you need any help or want to acquire a professional web design agency in Dubai, such as RSI Concepts, do feel free to reach us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Website Trends for Businesses in 2021

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