“I just wanted to tell you that your website is a godsend and I use it almost daily. So easy to navigate and extremely helpful.”
Redesigning an accessible network for busy parents
Busy Little Bee helps other parents keep their children learning and having fun, all while eliminating the frustration of extensive research on schools and activities.
BLB envisioned scaling their business and expanding into multiple locations. However, their existing site lacked the functionality they needed to grow, and the design was dated, needing a refresh to attract more users.
Our approach
The goal was to look professional while also being fun and interesting to its core users (parent’s with kids). The solution called for a clean layout and card design to display detailed activity information, but with fun colors, icons, and paint swashes to tie into the brand.
With a focused homepage and navigation, we gave visitors an immediate understanding of Busy Little Bee’s goals and purpose. We also created the ability to drive content marketing through a blog, social media, and newsletter.
Activity database
The biggest challenge was creating an editing system that was flexible enough to accommodate the very wide range of activities BLB promotes. Our final system incorporates well over 50 editable fields, allowing us to organize content for any event imaginable. Despite having vastly greater flexibility, Lauren (Busy Little Bee’s owner/founder) has found it much easier to manage than her previous site.
We paired this database with engaging front-end tools for visitors to navigate this intricate content with ease. The activities, preschool, and event databases can all be searched and filtered by multiple categories, and the most complex activities feature an additional level of filtering to narrow in on specific programs.
Featured sponsorships
BLB’s primary revenue stream comes from activity organizers and preschools paying for preferential placement on the site. All archives allow items to be ‘featured’, giving them additional features (such as images and buttons), as well as priority position as the first items in the feeds. The homepage is also designed to have many spots for promotions, all maintaining the intentional design of the site.
“Working with Katie and Mark could not have been a more enjoyable experience. They are a hard working duo that tackled my long, never-ending list of requests with patience and professionalism that you don’t easily find. The end product was better than I could have imagined thanks to their think-outside-the-box mentality.”
Neff Designs
