NAIS: Market View
Helping schools find prospective families and develop data-driven enrollment strategies.
The challenge
The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) wanted to provide its members a tool that would allow them to better understand the prospective student market. Traditionally, visualizing complex data on a map was a cumbersome process that might require several different tools and lots of time, but members requested the ability to easily create reports and share data-driven enrollment strategies.
The solution
01 Strategic partnership
Members of the National Association of Independent Schools needed an elegant, data-driven resource, and a partner that could be flexible in delivering the new system. After a research period to understand who would be using the new enrollment system and their roles and responsibilities, DockYard was able to design a tool users could access to discover information within school districts.
02 Optimized school district map
DockYard Design organized content in a way that is digestible and clear, prioritizing features such as saving and sharing reports, but ensured the tool still felt familiar and comfortable. It incorporated the existing NAIS brand colors and visual identity to position the organization as a trusted name with innovative, new capabilities, while integrating natural language filtering and accessibility best practices.
03 Mapping the solution
Market View required integration with a robust third-party Geographic Information System (GIS): ArcGIS by Esri. This system made available a multitude of powerful geographic and demographic data sets that DockYard leveraged to help users identify key market opportunities in the Market View application.
Given user-defined search and filter criteria, DockYard devised a strategy for querying, distilling, and rendering the compiled data on a map in a way that effectively worked around the limitations of the GIS API while minimizing performance impact.
The solution allowed Market View users to access complete and relevant data, enabling them to garner insights about prospective students and to reliably generate reports that could be shared with other school members.
04 Shared insights
DockYard’s solution was optimized for quickly sharing data and insights, as well as engaging teams, from the board of executives to the heads of member schools. This allows members to collaborate and tell meaningful stories about the students in their regions, further enriching enrollment strategies.
