background

Sunstone offers job focused undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to underserved students, in collaboration with universities around the country.

Sunstone’s guarantee of a job and placement linked fee terms are what differentiates it from a host of others who offer MBA and other post graduation programs.

Post a branding exercise where we helped them discover a set of messages to own and amplify, Sunstone approached us to design their website.

problem

The existing website suffered from information and design problems typical of rapid growth.
On the information side there was missing branding communication, haphazard addition of new sections and confused content hierarchy.

Responsiveness compromised the view on mobiles. Sticky items and CTAs, instead of helping in discovery, came in the way of accessing information and made it appear ‘pushy’, like a sales product.

Announcements and important information were getting lost due to unprescribed font and size usage.
Overall, the key messages about the brand got buried under the weight of unorganised information.

design

We made the case for a mobile first design and made each component responsive for optimised tablet and desktop views. The rationale was simple, 80% of the website’s traffic came from small, basic smartphones.
We approached the problem from two sides—information architecture and UI UX design. Though both facets are intimately intertwined, we separated them for the initial stages to simplify the goals for each.

The architecture was re-structured for clear information flow and navigation across the pages, for key personas. The goal was to bring the key brand messages and student propositions to the fore. The new design has more accessible navigation buttons and anchors which link to important sections across the website.

An always available sticky button allows users to select options which would otherwise be one click away. Considered usage of brand elements, colours and typography schemes give the website coherence. Simple conversational writing explains the courses, opportunities and payment terms with a consistent cadence.

impact

The new website will act as a digital admissions guide for students across the country and allow Sunstone’s growth to be consistently and clearly reflected online.