Does Your Website Have “Heart”?
How do you get through to people in today’s world? We are all deluged with endless conflicting messages and alerts to the point where most people end up running on “autopilot” to preserve their sanity.
In the midst of that, or perhaps because of it, education is more important than ever.
That is the problem faced by every County Office of Education. To be most effective, they need to communicate with the public and professional educators about the growing pallet of programs and services in their County. But how can you effectively communicate with people that are running on autopilot?
That was the problem faced by the Placer County Office of Education. Their website had all the right information, but it wasn’t successfully engaging the community.
They asked the question, “How do we get visitors to stop and consider these programs and the opportunities they represent. How do we get them off autopilot once they’re in our website?”.
With a background in corporate communications, their web design firm, Jack Frost Design was ready with an answer. Only a powerful, emotional response can break them out of their trance.
The best way to cause a positive emotional reaction by putting sincere “heart” into the website. For an organization devoted to education, communicating your hope, pride and enthusiasm is the key.
To do this, we identified deeply moving images and tied them to a profoundly inspirational message about the organization’s commitment to the brightest possible future for the community.
The images and messaging were also incorporated into the site in a way that would guarantee maximum impact immediately upon the visitor opening the site. The site loads initially with a single image, after a few seconds the primary message comes in. A few seconds later (giving the image and the message time to have an impact) the sights navigation comes in allowing you to move inside.
The effect is profound, and it is sustained throughout the site by weaving the message and other powerful images throughout the site.
The statistics speak for themselves.
This homepage (and other homepages in rotation) stop people dead in their tracks.
People are reminded of their own childhoods, early curiosity and imagination. In less than a second you can re-create optimism in an adult (even today).
Want to see it in action? Visit: www.placercoe.org