Barnsley Sixth Form College

Project Objectives

Our research found that the existing Barnsley Sixth Form College website was out-of-date and lacking some of the modern design and functionality that the main College site was benefiting from. 

A large part of the project was to provide our design and development expertise to Barnsley College’s other digital marketing assets, and the College had identified that their Barnsley Sixth Form College was the most important asset to work on next.

Bringing both websites into alignment would allow certain aspects of its functionality to be shared between sites – such as the course application form – and this would negate the need for staff updating the sites to be trained twice. It would also give users a sense of consistency when navigating between sites.

“The launch of the new Barnsley Sixth Form College website has meant that we now have both of our sites working in harmony, using the same platform and sharing assets. Genius Division helped us to plan the site so that we could minimise the need for duplication from the main Barnsley College website and this has worked extremely well. Genius Division have delivered a great looking site that functions across all devices and compliments our other website. In addition, staff have not had to re-train to maintain the website content as it works in the same way as the one we already know. The team at Genius Division brought their skills and expertise to the project and kept us informed of progress all the way from design to launch. We continue to be supported by them on all aspects of our web presence. Their response time to requests, issues and queries could not be bettered.”

Barnsley College

Our Work

We re-designed and built the Barnsley Sixth Form College website to look more modern and visually appealing. Our work involved designing a visually appealing site that worked across all devices such as mobile phones, tablets and computers, following design cues of the previously redesigned Barnsley College website.

We worked on bringing across key functionality from the new Barnsley College website, as well as bringing the Sixth Form College website in-line with our digital style guide we had created for the main Barnsley College website.

We built the new site on the WordPress content management system so Barnsley College can add, edit and update content when they need to. We also created a modified version of the Online Application Form from the Barnsley College website, to allow students to apply directly online.

Creating a positive impact

The finished website is bright, clear and easy to navigate, ensuring sixth form students can easily apply for both vocational and A level courses. The website is packed full of helpful information for users on all aspects of the Sixth Form College and has become an essential tool in Barnsley College’s marketing strategy.

• 78,000 page views in first 10 months
• 13% increase in session visits
• 12% increase in page views
• 12% increase in users

(Data compared over an 8 month period)