Enabling students to find an English course that fits their goals

Project overview

• Client: Spring Learning
• Timeline: 2022
• Role: UX/UI Designer
• Type: UI/UX, Wordpress, education
• Tools: WordPress, Elementor Pro
• Status: This design stayed in use through 2024, when new owners acquired the business and moved it to a new platform.

Background

Spring Learning is an English language school in Japan. They offer courses for different ages and skill levels. Students struggled to find the right course, and staff also found it hard to keep information up to date. I set out to redesign course discovery and improve information structure. The aim was to make it easier for students and parents to find the right course. On top of that, I wanted to create a system that staff could maintain on their own.

Challenge

Students and parents faced two main barriers when trying to find the right course.

In addition, staff found it hard to keep information up to date across the site. Any solution needed to be easy to maintain for a non-technical team.

What the old site looked like

All courses were on a single page organized by age group. While the layout was clean, it still required scrolling to find the right course, and course details were brief. Parents couldn't find information about curriculum, teacher qualifications, or learning outcomes without contacting the school.

What I did

I led the UX and UI redesign to make it easier for students and parents to discover and choose courses:

• Developed dedicated course pages organized by age and skill level to streamline discovery and provide detailed information
• Created scalable and accessible templates that enable staff to maintain consistency across the site and easily update course information without technical support
• Improved accessibility features to support all learners, ensuring inclusivity

I worked with the Spring Learning team to understand their needs and to confirm our design choices. The main goal was to make it easier for students and parents to find the right classes and information. We also wanted to help staff make simple updates to keep the content current. This approach focuses on helping users find what they need, while supporting the business goals of growth and conversion.

Deciding content priorities, organization and structure

Collaborated with staff to understand student needs

The team knew parents needed more details on the site, but didn't have all the answers on what to focus on. We worked together to figure out what information mattered most. We landed on information about curriculum, teacher, learning outcomes and trial lessons. I used quick wireframes to make sure we all agreed on the direction. This also worked to avoid misunderstandings before moving to the implementation phase.

Solution

Clear organization by age and level

We grouped courses so students and parents can find what they need right away. The homepage links directly to the course directory, so visitors don't have to search.

Each course has a dedicated page

Every course page follows the same layout, with variations depending on age group and available content types. There are sections for goals, teacher, curriculum, schedule, and pricing. This keeps things focused. Students and parents see what they need without getting distracted. Each page highlights what makes that course special, and the messaging fits the age group.

Before: All courses listed on a single page with minimal details.

After: Dedicated pages for each course, with focused content.

Templates that staff can maintain

I built reusable templates in Elementor. I added course cards, curriculum sections, teacher bio and buttons as reusable components. This lets staff update and add new content on their own without needing design or developer help.

Made it accessible

I improved button contrast from 2.19:1 to 13.12:1, which exceeds WCAG accessibility standards. I also refined typography, spacing and visual hierarchy to make the site easier to use for everyone.

What changed

The redesign improved how visitors explored courses and helped the business grow. The improvements happened at the same time as other initiatives, so the metrics are influenced both by the redesign and other growth efforts. Comparing two six-month periods showed:

Students could now find courses and make confident decisions based on detailed information. The template system helped staff handle website tasks. They could update courses, launch new programs and maintain a blog on their own. All while keeping the design consistent.

What I learned

• Plan the content organisation and navigation early: Setting up the structure at the start made it easier to make design decisions.
• Keep the people maintaining it in mind: Creating templates for staff to use meant balancing flexibility with structure. Too much freedom and the site gets messy. Too little and they feel stuck. It was an interesting challenge to consider what templates and guidelines to create for staff.
• Local conventions matter: Understanding patterns from other local language schools meant visitors could navigate using familiar patterns. The research into this was helpful to understand how languages schools in Japan present information. For example the clear "Point 1/2/3" format for course highlights was a common pattern that I adapted for this site.
• Accessibility can mean tradeoffs: Spring Learning has a specific brand and color palette. Improving accessibility meant discussing tradeoffs with the team. In particular it meant balancing user needs, standards and the branding.

Impact over time

The redesign launched in 2022 and grew with the business. I continued supporting the site through 2024, including:

• Adding new courses and updating content
• Monitoring analytics to spot problems
• Optimizing for mobile as more visitors used phones
• Scaling the template system as the program grew

In particular the analytics monitoring was key to understand the effect of the redesign and plan future improvements.