Design study · Technical college · Wisconsin
When the product is 68 programs, the catalog is the front door
A technical college website concept that leads with the alphabetical program catalog the College's own listening sessions asked for, instead of burying it three clicks under a viewbook photo.
Concept only. Facts are sourced from the College's published site and RFP #2627-09; this is not the official Southwest Wisconsin Technical College website.
- Higher education website
- WordPress theme
- Program catalog
- Credential pathways
- Search or Ask
- WCAG 2.2 AA
Southwest Tech — open the working site
Case study overview
The problem
A technical college sells specific, hands-on work — welding, ag power, nursing simulation, culinary, cosmetology, electrician apprenticeships, golf course management. Prospective students researching programs, costs, and next steps are the highest-traffic job on the site by the College's own audit. Yet college websites almost universally open on a campus-life photograph and a mission statement, putting the catalog those visitors came for behind a menu. The rural student on a patchy phone connection, possibly the first in their family to enroll, pays that cost first.
The approach
The homepage leads with the program catalog, alphabetical and complete, behind an arc-welding torchlight hero in the College's real charger blue and gold — an image of the work itself rather than a lawn. Credential ladders are documented as a scroll-lit pathway rail, climbing certificate to technical diploma to associate degree to apprenticeship to transfer, so a visitor can see where a program actually leads. A masthead Search-or-Ask omnibox answers plain questions from the College's own pages, documents, and calendar in English and Spanish. The events calendar the College asked to keep is rebuilt native, with subscribe links and a real month grid. Type is Big Shoulders, Wix Madefor Text, and Martian Mono over the College's own photography.
The result
A working site of 85 pages on a real WordPress theme, covering 68 programs across 15 career fields. WCAG 2.2 AA testing returned zero axe violations across every page. The register throughout is plain rural Wisconsin — a college that says 'come see the shops,' not one that explores its learning ecosystem.
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