Case Study: Blue Water Sailing School (Zenscope Studio)

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Case Study: Blue Water Sailing School

About the Client

The redesigned home page (click to enlarge)

Blue Water Sailing School is an ASA-certified sailing school based in Fort Lauderdale, FL. They have additional locations in the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Newport, RI.

Unlike many other schools, Blue Water is focused exclusively on sailing education. Potential customers who are interested in chartered yachts receive a polite recommendation to another company.

This single-minded dedication to educating sailors has lead BWSS to win a long list of American Sailing Association awards, including several Outstanding Educator awards for its teachers. Blue Water Sailing School has received ASA’s School of the Year award five times.

The Challenge

The old BWSS home page (click to enlarge)

Though BWSS had grown over time, it was still trying to communicate its message through a website that was originally designed almost ten years ago.

Information about new locations and course offerings had trouble finding a place in the site’s navigation, leaving some important pages largely un-visited. Traffic analysis performed during the project’s planning phase showed that a significant number of visitors never ventured beyond the home page. Those who stayed sometimes had trouble finding their way on the site, with up to 19% of them clicking navigation links for the page they were already viewing.

Blue Water Sailing School called on Zenscope Studio to redesign and rebuild the site, with the following goals in mind:

Integrate BWSS’s new online booking and scheduling features
Completely overhaul and modernize the site’s appearance
Reorganize the site for improved navigation and ease of use
Provide tools for easier maintenance

The Work in Progress

The redesigned website will launch soon. The school’s new online enrollment features will be seamlessly exposed to users, and the site’s improved hierarchical navigation structure will make browsing easier. To help visitors find their way, the currently-viewed page is always marked clearly. If you’re in a hurry, the site’s new integrated search will let you skip the navigation entirely and find exactly what you want.

Along with the usability enhancements and new features, Blue Water’s updated site will have some added informational content and a fresh new look. These screenshots of the in-development site give a preview of what’s to come.