Work
Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) has a singular vision of an equitable and inclusive school system that provides an excellent education to all students. For more than 50 years, they have fought alongside NYC students and families from under-resourced communities who are at the greatest risk of school-based discrimination. Their expertise combines direct support and training, policy advocacy, and impact litigation to protect education rights and eliminate barriers to success so all students can thrive.
While AFC are experts in their space, their website was acting as a barrier to resources for those they serve. The site housed a lot of great information, but it was laborious for users to actually find what they needed and discover new or related materials.
AFC was ready for a change.
Through several discovery conversations, we knew AFC needed a site that was accessible and easy-to-navigate so parents and professionals alike could quickly access resources they need, and explore additional information they may not have know they needed. Our goal was to ensure that people left the site feeling that their questions had been answered, and if they hadn’t, they at least had clear next steps to solve their problems.
To hit our goal, we needed to find the sweet spot where content strategy meets user experience. We restructured AFC’s content into a detailed sitemap, and worked closely with them to create wireframes that captured the features, functionality, and user flows across the site.
Throughout our work together, it was important to AFC to be part of the process. The design of the site involved expanding upon the existing AFC brand elements for a modern look, while remaining true to who AFC is. To create space for this collaboration, we added weekly working sessions with “live designing” where AFC could try out ideas on the call together to see how it would look in real life.
To keep us within the bounds of our timeline and budget, we set goals for these working sessions to make sure we made the decisions we needed to by the end of the session. These guidelines helped us complete the project on time and within budget, without feeling restricted through the creative process.
Pairing our content and UX strategy with our visual design system we created a site that feels smart and resourceful, and easily directs users to help, resources and opportunities to learn more about what AFC offers in the education space.
Teal is a long-term creative partner to ESP, serving as an extension of their communications team to develop creative assets for their research products and campaigns to build economic power for all Americans
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