01 — Context
Compu-Med Vocational Careers (CMVC) is a healthcare training school for Hispanic students in the United States, with campuses in Florida and Texas and ten programs, from dental assisting to nursing.
The site had to organise programs, campuses, student services and institutional messaging without getting heavy, and without the mobile version diluting the offer. I designed the UX/UI and built the site in WordPress and Elementor, forms included.
02 — My role
I defined the information architecture, designed the patterns for program blocks, forms and enrolment calls to action, and built them in WordPress. I set up GA4 and reviewed heatmaps in Clarity. I worked on the project through Aquinas Network SAS. The client supplied the copy and photography.
03 — Diagnosis
A few concrete actions among a lot of information
It was a new site, with no previous version to fix, so the problem lay in the brief and in how to frame the site. Two audiences arrive at the same site: people choosing a program and campus, and current students. My read was that both come with a few concrete actions in mind (applying, talking to an advisor, requesting a transcript) and that, in a single long menu, those actions would get buried among the institutional pages.
Getting it wrong would hurt both sides. Prospective students, who probably arrive on mobile and shouldn’t have to go far to ask for information. And admissions, who needed to know which campus and program each enquiry was about.
04 — Decisions
A. Ask for information without leaving the home page
- Problem
- Visitors who have already decided shouldn’t have to look for a contact page to leave their details.
- Decision
- A five-field form on the first screen, next to the promise and the "Enroll NOW!" and "Exam" buttons. The pattern repeats in the campaign landing template.
- Why this one
- I weighed sending all traffic to a separate admissions page; I chose the form on the home page because decided visitors can leave their details without leaving the first screen. The cost: a busier hero, where the form competes with the message.
- What I expected
- To capture enquiries from decided visitors on the first scroll, before they got lost in navigation.
B. Direct actions on top, institutional information below
- Problem
- Prospects and students arrive with concrete actions in mind, and in a single menu those actions would get lost among the school’s pages.
- Decision
- A top bar with direct actions for both audiences: Apply Now, Admission Exams, Talk to an Advisor and the "Request an Advisor" button for prospects; Marketplace, Request Transcripts and Student Login, the way into Canvas, for current students. Below, the institutional menu: About CMVC, Campus, Student Services, Financial Aid, Admissions and Blog. On mobile, four of those actions become buttons at the bottom of the panel.
- Why this one
- I weighed a single menu holding everything; I chose to split by type of task, doing something now or finding out, because someone coming to apply or request a transcript doesn’t need to go through the institutional pages. The cost: the header takes two bars and eats into the first screen, and the top bar mixes actions for two audiences.
- What I expected
- Prospects and students reaching their action in one click without going through the offer, and a short institutional menu.
C. A program index where every program weighs the same
- Problem
- With ten programs, featuring a few would hide the rest, and a list with descriptions would get long.
- Decision
- A grid of equal cards with icon and name that keeps two columns on mobile; each card leads to its program’s page.
- Why this one
- I weighed a carousel and a list with descriptions; I chose the grid because it reads at a glance and no program sits behind a swipe. The cost: the home page loses each program’s detail, which lives on its own page.
- What I expected
- Each visitor finding their program on the home page and reaching that program’s page in one click.
D. Campus and program before personal details
- Problem
- With several campuses, an enquiry without campus or program would force admissions to find out on the first call.
- Decision
- The admissions form opens with two selectors, campus and program, then asks for name, phone, ZIP code and email. It is reused on the contact page.
- Why this one
- I weighed a multi-step form; I chose a single screen that opens with a choice, because with six fields steps weren’t worth it and choosing campus and program lowers the barrier of the first field. The cost: all six fields show at once, and the form looks longer than a stepped one.
- What I expected
- Enquiries arriving already assigned to the right campus and program.
05 — System
The result was a two-level header (Fig. 1), whose direct actions become buttons at the bottom of the mobile menu, a card-based program index (Fig. 2), a campaign landing template with a form on the first screen (Fig. 3) and an admissions form with campus and program that is reused on admissions and contact (Fig. 4).
The scope ended at delivery and instrumentation, not impact reporting, so this case reports no figures.
06 — What I’d test now
The home page form asks for name and phone but not campus or program, unlike the admissions form (Fig. 0 versus Fig. 4). I’d test giving the home form the same first row.
- Hypothesis
- If the home form starts with campus and program, the submission rate holds and more enquiries arrive ready for admissions.
- Primary metric
- Form submissions per session landing on the home page, in GA4.
- Secondary
- Share of enquiries admissions reaches on the first attempt, measured in their CRM.
- Control
- The current home form. 50/50 split until the sample size calculated from the baseline, with submission rate as a guardrail: if it drops, the variant is discarded.