Design Challenge and Design Ideas

DLplanning.ie has been created to support school leaders in their efforts to embed technology into all aspects of teaching. The Digital Learning Framework represents one of the key supports envisaged under the Department of Education’s Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020.

The Digital Learning Framework is a complicated document that was conceived to be produced as a written document. An online solution was not considered when the document was being written. Artizan was approached as they have a proven record in providing visual solutions to complicated projects. www.dlplanning.ie needed to be visually engaging while also not diluting the detailed matrix of information that needs to be conveyed. The site also needed to appeal to non-technical school principals as well as teachers who have an established interest in digital technologies. Getting this balance while not diluting the DLF document was one of the challenges of the design brief.

How the brief was fulfilled

The DL Planning website supports the Department of Education’s Digital Learning Framework through which schools and teachers are given a structure allowing them to identify where they are on the journey towards embedding digital technologies in teaching, learning and assessment, and enable them to progress in that journey.
The fullscreen background video on the homepage gives immediate context and invites the visitor to choose one of two options: primary and post-primary. Within these categories, there are two dimensions: (1) Teaching and Learning (2) Leadership and Management. We used the same colour coding in the website to align with the written documentation.

Our goal was to simplify the way in which the digital learning framework could be processed and understood. We established a structure that allowed information to be filtered to ensure a clean interface that invites interactivity. For the navigation we used sticky menus and toggle buttons to allow the visitor to jump from one section to another without losing their place on screen.

We created an interactive infographic for the homepage to illustrate the planning cycle. The website is fully responsive and provides a highly aesthetic and user-friendly experience on desktop, mobile and tablet.

The site is bi-lingual and was designed to easily facilitate continuous updates of videos, content and downloadable resources in both English and Irish by the PDST admin team.