Setting up the Challenge
Seattle Gymnastics Academy (SGA) provides high-quality, progressive gymnastics instruction across the Seattle area. As a long-time client, they entrusted their design partner Phinney Bischoff with tackling the next refresh of their website to better meet the expanding needs of their business and clientele.
Listening & Learning
Before engaging with Phinney Bischoff, SGA surveyed their client base and discovered that while plenty of their customers enjoyed aspects of their current site, there were key functional deficiencies creating friction in the user experience. The top complaint was an inability to find recreational classes, as users felt that information was buried too deep within the site and was displayed in an overwhelming, unclear manner. Another area of opportunity centered on supporting SGA’s rapid business expansion. Admins needed to easily add additional gym locations and better integrate with back-end CRM tools on the website. Other key objectives included improving accessibility, navigation and filtering tools.
Perfecting the Routine
Having the benefit of developing audience personas for SGA in the past, Phinney Bischoff leveraged that research alongside SGA’s fresh usability survey results to create a solid UX strategy. This strategy laid the framework to establish an improved hierarchy and navigation for the site. We then conducted additional research by wireframe testing, validating findings and adjusting any areas of improvement. The resulting site structure yielded more intuitive user journeys and helped the SGA team organize their content and class information in a succinct format.
Crafting Visual Balance
The visual design of the site utilized SGA’s existing brand that was established by Phinney Bischoff in the past, modernized to take advantage of the latest advancements in web design. This included a more dynamic layout that leaned into the bright shapes and lively angles inherent to the SGA brand expression, as well as polished animations and micro-interactions. All elements were custom-tailored to meet AA accessibility standards.
Sticking the Landing
To better display SGA’s class offerings, we developed an easy-to-read matrix that listed availability by every location, which especially helped reduce confusion between their two Lake City locations. We also refined the Events Calendar to better filter results and increase legibility. Further, we crafted a separate site for SGA’s onsite early education program: Seattle Preschool. While utilizing the same framework as the Gymnastics site, a distinct color palette enabled this Preschool website to shine on its own while still being part of the SGA family.
Phinney Bischoff believes that a website should be an extension of an organization’s brand personality. We are proud to have redesigned the Seattle Gymnastics Academy site to be more user-friendly for their clientele and serve as a powerful administrative tool for SGA and Preschool staff.
