NHES Redesign

During the major IES/NCES refresh most sites received a cursory styling update to enhance readability, but otherwise they retained the original designs and layouts. More in-depth work was needed on older survey and program areas to ensure mobile compatibility and improve the overall user experience.

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) was an excellent pilot candidate for this series of updates. It is the premier household survey of NCES, providing descriptive data on the educational activities of the U.S. population. Our goal was to design an easy-to-navigate site that clearly presented all the necessary information to answer common questions about the survey and instruct the public on how to complete it.

The Challenges

  • The templates used for the NCES survey areas did not utilize a responsive design, making mobile usage challenging

  • NHES lacked dynamic content, making the page feel stale and unengaging, as updates were infrequent and required manual changes

  • The site had hierarchal issues which made it hard to determine what was the most important content on any given page

  • Navigating the site required used of the side navigation, forcing users to step through one or more additional pages trying to get to a specific topic area

The Results

  • New responsive design with breakpoints set for the most common devices using the site

  • The homepage now has topic based callouts using images and CSS animations to attract users, and allows them to rapidly navigate to important topic areas

  • Custom scripts written to allow for displaying certain portions of the site in content written in both english and spanish to accommodate the expected audiences

  • Dynamic content is now integrated throughout the site, featuring supplementary elements such as recent NHES-related blog posts and reports

  • A new section was added post-launch to explain in detail the 2023 National Household Education Survey, including information on the physical materials the public could expect to receive with collapsible sections that offered in-depth explanations of specific topics

  • The publication section now features a customized version of the site-wide publications search, filtering for NHES related topic areas

Some Missed Opportunities

  • The sections for Publications, Tables, and Methodological Research turned out longer than expected, and an integrated search tool would help users navigate the content more efficiently