MACTE

Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education — Based in Charlottesville, Virginia

We helped MACTE with:

  • WordPress User Experience and Website Development

  • SEO & Analytics

Branding and Webpage Visual Design by Carly of Schematic Design Co.

How It Started…

We love referrals for many reasons, but the main reason is that it often means working with the best clients! MACTE was no different. When Carly, of Schematic Design Co., who we work with all of the time, reached out to us on behalf of her client, we knew this project was going to be good.

MACTE had initially booked Schematic Design Co. for branding, collateral, and a Squarespace website, but upon a deeper dive into the org’s needs, Carly realized that Squarespace might not be the right platform for them. So she referred us to MACTE since WordPress websites are in VVITCH Digital’s wheelhouse and it seemed like was what would work best for MACTE.

We were thrilled to step in and work with this non-profit to update their website and make it function better for their team.

A Website Refresh

With a new visual brand identity, it was time to update the website and ensure a cohesive experience for all those interacting with MACTE. That meant a total overhaul of their website.

MACTE had never made a unified effort to streamline their digital presence before. With new messaging in place and a new visual brand identity, we were tasked with creating a beautiful, functional, accessible website that would serve MACTE’s target audiences.

Step 1: Creating a requirements document that outlined every page, integration and function that would exist on the website. It also meant spending time developing a new site menu that would make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. We do this to ensure all parties are on the same page about exactly what to expect from the website. Once we were aligned on the requirements of the website, Schematic Design Co. got to work creating mockups for almost every page. This allows the client to know exactly what they can expect to see when the website is built and reduces the back-and-forth with the dev team. Responsive design can affect the final look of the website, but we aim to set clear expectations whenever we can.

On top of the overall design of the website being aesthetically pleasing, it was our job to ensure that the large amount of information on the MACTE site was easy to find and understand. This is where UX design comes into play. We also needed to ensure that the website actually worked. One key factor in opting for a WordPress website was the ability to use integrations. The dev team set up an integration with the tool Quickbase to make the directory of all accredited Montessori programs searchable. This was a critical piece of the website.

Finally, we added SEO metadata to all pages, and ensured Google Analytics were being captured for site traffic. This way, MACTE can see what users are doing on the website!

All of the pieces of the puzzle came together to help MACTE achieve their goals of:

  1. Showing up as a professional organization.

  2. Making users feel like they are an approachable and personal organization, not stuffy and authoritative.

  3. Helping people to feel well informed after visiting the website.

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