CT Sports Center Website Redesign
My Role: Research, UI/UX, Design
Tools: Wix, Nikon DSLR
Timeline: June 2021 - August 2021
Background
The Connecticut Sports Center (CSC) is home to the largest and oldest volleyball program in Connecticut.
CSC was in dire need of an updated website with more focus on the user experience and overall design. Because parents and athletes are the main users, there was a need for clear and quick use and registration capabilities.
With the old site, there were quite a few standout issues:
Outdated layout styles
Inconsistent hierarchy, typefaces, and color scheme across site pages
Not easy to access registration pages and complicated checkout process
Photos were little to none or very outdated
Sections had unnecessary verbiage
Clinic information was confusing and hard to find
Too many pages in navigation
The Process
The research process began with exploring other successful volleyball and sport centers in the area. I researched each one and observed what their websites successfully accomplished. Some of the things I noticed from other sites that the CSC site did not contain were:
Colorful, inviting site pages
Information clearly laid out in tables
Photos were vibrant and matched the style of the brand
Registration pages were easy to access and save
Photography
I utilized my photography skills to capture photos of the facilities and sports teams to be used for marketing purposes across social media and the website to help improve the visual appeal of the pages. For spaces that needed generic photography or art, I utilized tools such as Unsplash to get royalty-free images.
Photograph of the soccer facilities at the CSC
Photograph of the volleyball facilities at the CSC
Because the CSC is a business, an important aspect before beginning the design process was analyzing the different hosting systems to see which would be most cost-effective and offer all the right needs for them. Additionally, the new site needed to meet updated business needs such as e-commerce capabilities and ease of management for the non-design educated business owners.
One we landed on Wix, it was time to design. For the typography we stuck with blocky, bold, easy to read text to emulate the type of typefaces that would be seen around a sports arena or on jerseys.
New CSC Homepage
New CT Juniors Spring Page
Impact
This was my first major website redesign experience for a business. There were quite a few things that I learned to translate into future projects:
Information can be the most important part. Lay it out first in a blank document and focus on the verbiage before beginning the design process.
Understanding the business and user needs are paramount to the success of the overall site.
Having a user-friendly site management and host system is important to keep the website design looking clean.
Statistically, CSC gained a lot of web traffic as well. From May 1, 2022 to May 1, 2023 there were 88,603 new page views and 19,166 new unique visitors.
Visit www.ctsportscenter.com to see this website in action.
Image by graphictwister on Freepik
Image by aleksandr_samochernyi on Freepik