Institute for Multisensory Education

The education industry is seeing, at last, its own technology boom and the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education is a driving force behind some of the most innovative tools for teachers.  However, leaders at IMSE recognized that they had reached a nexus of opportunity. They realized that they needed to develop a growth strategy that allowed them to scale at a rate that would allow them to harness their growing demand, but without compromising their standards for quality.

And because IMSE’s core business model consists of training teachers in specialized reading methodologies, their sense of timing aligned perfectly with a recent increase in attention being paid to declining literacy rates. Insofar as our own mission is to work with companies making a positive impact on the world, we could think of no better fit than IMSE for a comprehensive set of strategic, marketing and technology initiatives.

To understand why IMSE is important, we’ll let our product tell the story. See below:

Our initial challenge was to update IMSE’s image through a comprehensive redesign and rework of their internet presence. Their initial look had served them well for a time, but as it was built on now outdated technology it needed an upgrade to effectively honor the brand.

By mapping the organization’s goals directly to user experience, we were able to prioritize layouts in a manner that let users easily identify the highest priority parts of the site.

We undertook a deep re-think of paths through the site and the user’s objectives at each step along the way. Substantial thought was given to each detail, providing the user with what they need in an easily discoverable means on each page.

User experience diagrams mapping how a user will navigate the website.

With successful completion of user experience research, we proceeded to the design phase. Having learned as much as possible about the brand, its mission and goals, we were able to quickly produce a set of updated designs that present the organization in a more modern, approachable fashion – and across a variety of devices.

By mapping the organization’s goals directly to user experience, we were able to prioritize layouts in a manner that let users easily identify the highest priority parts of the site. In this particular case those objectives included learning about the organization, seeing which trainings were available nearby and then signing up for those trainings.  In other words, our UX design was created to drive conversion through multiple user paths.

We knew that, in order to compete in an industry with a growing demand for tools and technology, IMSE needed to enhance “Teacher Tools,” a suite of educational applications custom-developed for IMSE that allows classroom instructors to easily adopt and apply their methodologies. By creating a high-level, yet easy-to-use application, IMSE would be able take its place as an education technology provider that is known for creating accessible, intuitive and powerful tools, enabling teachers to comply with evolving curricula mandates in an agile, adoptable way. Our goal was to build for IMSE a powerful technology that would enable them to empower teachers to effectively educate children who learn differently.

In keeping with our mobile first development methodology, all screens were built first and foremost for handheld and tablet, then scaled up for desktop. This approach allows us to build for all possible devices without having to layer on additional scope for each.

We’re honored to continue our engagement with IMSE, building on our current platform and developing new tools that teachers can use to quickly produce their own, bespoke training materials. This is work we’re proud to put our name on. Follow along at the new site.