Wee Chicks Fitness did not feel that their original website was suitable enough for what they needed at that point and didn’t feel it gave the best representation of their business, which consists of fitness classes and crèche sessions. I was asked to redesign their website to a standard comparable with other types of websites that are more common nowadays. Certain keywords they emphasized that were important to represent the site included fun & vibrant. They also required an onsite booking system so customers could order quantities of tickets for the fitness classes and also crèche sessions.
We decided that a C.M.S. (Content Management System) would be the best way to go, and WordPress to be the ideal option. This way they would be able to edit the website much more easily and in less time. After meeting up a few times to discuss requirements and ideas, it was then time to research on websites of similar businesses – what they included, how they looked, the branding, and so on. WordPress templates, whilst they are meant to be easy to edit, the amount of flexibility in terms of how extravagant the site could look would be limited (depending on the theme you went with); this was in my mind when considering the site was required to have a fun and vibrant feel about it.
As a booking system was an important factor to be included within the site. I looked through a plethora of themes to see if they had one included. I contacted various support teams of certain plugins for clarification and some other issues in order which theme would work best for the purpose of the website. Some of the responses included what I wanted to hear, and others not to be. I predominantly looked through two categories of theme: one based upon fitness, and another for children events. A challenge I came across was being able to blend the two together. What would the site represent the most?
An issue Wee Chicks Fitness cover is wellbeing. Their aim is to help parents and kids keep healthy in terms of body and mind. This then brought up the task of how to go about implementing the colour scheme. For me it was always going to consist of the colours of the logo, which are red, blue and green. This for me brought up another issue. How can I have the design of the website looking fun and vibrant (a site featuring crèche sessions) and also look appropriate for adults and parents (more mature). I found the target audience / colour scheme combination to be conflicting. I felt the use of the particular red and blue could feel untargeted towards a male audience, which taught me a key lesson.
“For me it was always going to consist of the colours of the logo, which are red, blue and green.”
In regards to content, a key matter was the imagery. The website would have to contain imagery of the fitness classes and crèche sessions, as they are the main features of Wee Chicks Fitness, of course. I found this to be a tricky issue, to get permission from parents to allow pictures on of their kids to be on the site. I let the client deal with that matter and any images they had the go ahead with I could then put them on the site. I found my process to consist of loops which I would research, create some rough drafts for the client to see, then research again, and create more drafts for them. It would come to the point where we would finally reach a satisfactory idea for the website to go ahead and produce.
The final outcome would contain a modern look with a full screen design, allowing images to be presented throughout the pages. I decided to keep the use of the logo colour scheme to a minimum and keep the site predominantly white. I felt for smaller images having them circular would feel more appropriate than just having common square ones, they felt more ‘community’, ‘connecting’ and works better towards the target audience.
I created the icons for the features section with the colour scheme to be the focal summary of what Wee Chicks Fitness entails. Header images on some pages would be less quality as a way of ‘privacy’ for the ones in the photographs, I can see arguments for both sides but I understand and respect that point of view. I kept most pages templated and simplistic for the content to be skimmed through easily.
It was a challenging experience as I didn’t possess as much knowledge about design and the knowhow of producing the website for a client as I do now. There are things I would do differently (now thanks to the learning curve during the experience). I feel a big part of how my workflow panned out was down to the quality of questioning at the very beginning. Tying down that understanding of the target audience would’ve made a big impact.
I was aware of the areas covered in the business, but could’ve made the focal point clearer for myself. I’d also look at the bigger picture of the schedule of work. What to do and how long it’ll take, are two big aspects I can take note off and I could point more focus on the user experience of the people who’d be using the website. I’ve been grateful for this experience and I have continued to help with work on the website since.