Improving visit-to-inquiry conversion through a research-driven website redesign for a network of K-12 private schools.
Spring Education Group operates over 200 private school websites, which serve as the primary way prospective families find and inquire about enrollment. I led the UX redesign of multiple school websites with a focus on improving Visit-to-Inquiry (V2I) conversion and the overall experience for parents.
Using quantitative analytics, heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, and qualitative research including parent interviews and surveys, we identified key usability barriers and redesigned critical user flows across desktop and mobile.
View Live Site ↗Spring Education Group operates a network of private schools across the United States, serving families from early childhood through high school. The organization's websites function as the primary entry point for prospective parents researching and inquiring about enrollment. Each school has their own specific grade level they serve and are geographically spread out across the country.
Before any design work started, I pulled GA4 data to get a clear picture of where things stood year over year. The homepage was picking up more traffic, but overall site sessions were down. Engagement time was ticking up, which told me people were interested once they landed. They just weren't finding what they needed quickly enough to convert.
| Period | Sessions | Active Users | New Users | Avg. Engagement Time | Key Events (generate_lead) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Traffic · Total | |||||
| May–Dec 2024 | 331,347 | 270,850 | 247,451 | 1m 06s | 13,051 |
| May–Dec 2023 | 411,715 | 299,441 | 290,032 | 39s | 14,076 |
| % Change | ↓ −19.52% | ↓ −9.55% | ↓ −14.68% | ↑ +69.37% | ↓ −7.28% |
| Homepage ( / ) Only | |||||
| May–Dec 2024 | 77,541 (23.4%) | 69,323 (25.59%) | 64,807 (26.19%) | 43s | 1,143 (8.76%) |
| May–Dec 2023 | 56,678 (13.77%) | 48,119 (16.07%) | 43,647 (15.05%) | 46s | 1,009 (7.17%) |
| % Change | ↑ +36.81% | ↑ +44.07% | ↑ +48.48% | ↓ −6.52% | ↑ +13.28% |
We ran surveys and interviews with prospective parents to understand what they were actually looking for when researching schools, what drove their decisions, and what was getting in their way.
"I wish I knew more about the curriculum and what makes it different from the other schools in my area."
— Parent, usability session"I'd love to see images of children actively learning in the classroom and to know what kinds of activities fall within the components of Links to Learning."
— Parent, usability session"Safety is my biggest concern with my child these days. I want to know how the schools are going to keep my child safe."
— Parent, usability sessionI reviewed competitor school websites to see what they were doing well and where SEG had room to stand out.
Early on I sketched out wireframes to explore new layout directions that would put value messaging front and center and make it easier for parents to find the inquiry path. I also started experimenting with bringing distinct branding into each school, building color systems tied to each school's identity while keeping accessibility in check.
We went through several rounds of iteration, bringing designs back to stakeholders regularly and working through their feedback. A few stakeholders were attached to keeping a uniform look across all schools, so we leaned on the research to make the case for why stronger differentiation actually helped parents connect with the right school faster.
Building within WordPress meant the dev team had to be part of the conversation from day one. I kept everything annotated in Figma Dev Mode and ran weekly syncs with the engineering team so we could catch any technical constraints before they turned into redesign requests.
Final deliverables included:
Click each number to see where that design decision lives across both mobile and desktop.
After launch, we tracked performance from May through December 2025 and compared it to the same period in 2024. Traffic grew significantly across the board, and the homepage in particular saw strong gains in both visits and lead generation.
| Period | Sessions | Active Users | New Users | Avg. Engagement Time | Key Events (generate_lead) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Traffic · Total | |||||
| May–Dec 2025 | 404,370 | 345,164 | 311,761 | 1m 00s | 12,327 |
| May–Dec 2024 | 331,347 | 270,850 | 247,451 | 1m 06s | 13,051 |
| % Change YoY | ↑ +22.04% | ↑ +27.44% | ↑ +25.99% | ↓ −8.6% | ↓ −5.55% |
| Homepage ( / ) Only | |||||
| May–Dec 2025 | 93,842 (23.21%) | 83,000 (24.05%) | 77,947 (25%) | 52s | 1,162 (9.43%) |
| May–Dec 2024 | 77,541 (23.4%) | 69,323 (25.59%) | 64,807 (26.19%) | 43s | 1,143 (8.76%) |
| % Change YoY | ↑ +21.02% | ↑ +19.73% | ↑ +20.28% | ↑ +19.28% | ↑ +1.66% |
Designing across multiple school brands while keeping everything feeling like it belonged to one system was a real balancing act. Stakeholders had strong opinions, and those didn't always line up with what the research was pointing to.
WordPress also shaped design decisions more than I would have liked. Certain patterns just weren't feasible in the CMS, which meant finding workarounds or simplifying interactions I had originally planned.
Scope crept mid-project, which meant reprioritizing and having honest conversations with stakeholders about what would make it into v1 and what would have to wait.
This project was a turning point for me. The scope of the work, the depth of research involved, and the results it produced all played a role in my promotion to Senior UX Designer.
More than anything else I had worked on, this project pushed me to think and operate at a strategic level. Grounding decisions in data, working through competing priorities with stakeholders, and staying with a project from early discovery all the way through post-launch measurement.