Alberta Pipe Trades College
Streamlining registration processes for this educational institute committed to building a better Alberta.
The Client
The Alberta Pipe Trades College handles the education and training of many of the tradespeople who work in the oil and gas industry in Alberta. As the governing body for apprenticeships and journeyman training and with a student body of thousands of students per year, the college is one of the busiest trade-specific educational institutes in Alberta.
The Alberta Pipe Trades College recently built a brand new building – combining world class facilities with top training for their students.
Project Breakdown
I was asked to come in and speak to the College board members about how I could revive their 8 year old website to fit the new look and feel of the college’s new building. I told them it would be a more fitting solution to start from scratch. Trying to make technology as old as their current website suit the more advanced goals of the college wouldn’t be a fitting solution.
I identified the three main goals for the college’s new website – online registrations, course communications, and a modern feel to mimic the new building. The college wanted to lessen the load on their staff for the registrations of their courses by placing some of the process online (on registration day it wasn’t uncommon to have 100 people lined up out the door!)
By making sure their website contained all of the information previously only accessible by phone, the secondary goal of communicating course information online would allow their students to access info easily while easing the burden on their administration staff.
The Solution
Taking several design cues from the architecture of the new college, I designed a modern and user friendly design which would update and compliment the college’s brand. I had a large selection of professional photos taken by a public relations company so there was no shortage of gorgeous imagery to use for the site.
Using WordPress, I built a custom course display and registration system where the registration process could be completed 80% online. Since the college still required some in person interaction to complete the registration process, this allowed students to drastically reduce their total time spent registering for a course.
I also created a forms system with conditional logic which I was able to use to capture a wide variety of course-specific information – making the once complex process much easier to complete. And since the website was made mobile friendly to allow for students to navigate it across a range of devices, it meant the college was truly making the registration process as easy as possible for their students.
Project Features
Web Development
Responsive Design
WordPress
Conditional Forms
The Outcome
Once the website was live the internal staff at the college saw a decrease in the amount of work they were doing answering information questions and registering students into their courses. Once given an alternative method of registering and of pre-registering for their courses, most students took it and this allowed for shorter wait lines and quicker processing.
Overall the website was a successful addition to the college’s registration process and continues to serve them and their students.
What can we make together?
I’d love to hear about your project and how I can custom fit a solution to help you accomplish your business goals. Let’s get the ball rolling!