Early Childhood Learning Centers

Background

YMCA of the North desired to introduce a microsite communicating their daycare and preschool programs for various age groups to their community and beyond. While forming a part of the wider YMCA of the North website, the Early Childhood Learning Centers (ECLC) microsite should provide very distinct browsing feeling to the user. Five Jars created a microsite with parallels to the YMCA of the North websites, but which is still offering a completely new user experience. Eventually, we populated the microsite together with the ECLC team and the Creative Director of YMCA of the North to deliver an astonishing result.

Childcare with purpose

ECLC offers various programs for children aged between 6 weeks and 5 years. All programs offer daytime care and implement a learning-through-playing approach. In addition, ECLC offers summer programs for kids up to 17 years old. In order to spread their offer, the YMCA of the North required a microsite demonstrating the uniqueness of the ECLC approach and all their advantages. Five Jars collaborated with the ECLC and created a site architecture which on the one hand seamlessly integrated on the backend with the existing environment as well as provided a distinct user experience on the frontend.

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The old within the new

The project brief required our developers to create a user experience different from the rest of the website. However, a microsite absolutely distinct to the wider website ultimately feels rough to the user as the various styles may not work well together. Recognizing the potential issue, Five Jars kept the header and footer of the wider YMCA of the North websites and integrated that layout into their design. The result shows that retaining the header and the footer gives the desired resemblance to the wider design context.

Colors as refreshing element

The ECLC offers childcare services by fulfilling the highest child care standards. Talking with the ECLC team, Five Jars received their design concept as well as their vision of the final website. The result is a website full of colors, different shapes, lines, and pictures. In contrast to the wider YMCA of the North websites, the ECLC microsite is bursting with color and, therefore, with perceived happiness. With our distinct design, we gave the ECLC a microsite truly representing their values of openness, youthfulness, and trustworthiness. 

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A direct call to action

The main objective was to disseminate the ECLC and their services as well as increase the enrolment of kids in their daycare program. Five Jars knows that trusting someone with one’s child is a big step. Therefore, we decided not to focus on selling a service but rather on encouraging the parents to book a free and unconditional tour at their nearest ECLC center. To date, our approach increased the requested tours which led to an increase of parents requesting ECLC’s services eventually.

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To search means to find

Offering programs for infants, toddlers, pre-school and pre-kindergarten kids as well as various summer programs, the user may be overwhelmed with a load of information presented on the microsite. To facilitate a better user experience, Five Jars integrated a search function within the microsite which allows not only to search for the right program but also many other things such as their teaching values. Site analytics shows that the search tool on the microsite has been used frequently and represents a cornerstone of our solution.