Credential Engine is a non-profit organization with a mission to map the credential landscape and fuel the development of tools and services that empower individuals to find the best career pathways.
When Credential Engine approached us, their existing website was no longer working to their advantage. Their offerings were written in a way that was too complex for the site’s intended audience, and information was difficult to find. We worked with a range of experts in their team to design and develop a website that was approachable, easy to maintain, and useful for their audiences.
One of Credential Engine’s most valuable educational tools was an infographic and accompanying video explainer illustrating how the road to credential transparency depends on collaboration between key stakeholders.
We leveraged the creative direction of these assets and extended them to create a unified design language for the website that tied into that narrative.
One of this website build’s core challenges was creating a mapping solution that allowed Credential Engine to display current and future state and regional partners. While their previous website’s map displayed current information well, adding new partners without a web developer’s assistance was impossible.
We believe our clients should feel empowered to manage and modify their websites quickly and safely without a web development expert. Our solution leveraged powerful mapping plugins and customizations, allowing Credential Engine to keep their partner map up to date easily.
As the authority in the credential transparency environment, Credential Engine has a vast collection of freely-available resources on their website – from policy briefs to service fact sheets to roadmaps for implementing credential transparency. This required careful restructuring to ensure audiences found resources in the least amount of time and could leverage tools, like filters and search, to help them in their journey.
From redesigning their curated State Partner Toolkit to creating resource-type landing pages and redefining content and archiving policies, we aimed to ease discoverability, accessibility, and maintenance.
Leveraging plain language practices and accessibility guidelines, we prioritized clarity and ease of use for users of all backgrounds and abilities. The result is a more informative and better-performing website paired with an approachable look and feel.
As an organization, we were apprehensive about tackling a website redesign as we were aware of the challenges we faced in communicating our work effectively. However, working with Online Optimism proved to be a great experience. They understood our vision quickly and were able to translate our ideas into a functional website. The Online Optimism team communicated well and worked diligently. They made the process painless and produced a great final product.
"*" indicates required fields