Equestrian Website Review Please

[Ozzy]

I've been working on my daughters website in my spare time; using an off-the-shelf Wordpress theme and tweaking it a little.

The website is here; https://maequestrian.co.uk/

I'm specifically looking for feedback on the Alternative Provision area, as I've not finished other parts of the site.
The target audience are Local Authorities and Schools, so the language is geared towards them. The service is delivered to children who are either excluded, unable to, or otherwise not attending school - typically with SEND (Special Educational Needs & Disablities) or SEMH (Social, Emotional, and Mental Health) issues. Hence, hopefully, the tone but again that's the focus for feedback please.

Pages specially are; leading page

BHS Changing Lives through Horses - Alternative Provision

MA Equestrian is a SEND and SEMH friendly Alternative Provision delivering Changing Lives through Horses programs in partnership with the BHS.

maequestrian.co.uk

This page has two frameworks referenced depending on the age of the child, is this clear?

The structure of these pages, I'm thinking of replicating for the rest of the site - is the structure easy to follow?
I have not completed the Referral page yet, so simply directs to the contact us page.

 

[MikeJ]

Had a look, simply because the current Mrs J is chair of a local Riding for the Disabled Association group.

If it was me, I'd want to see some idea of pricing somewhere, and that doesn't seem possible without creating an account.

 

[Ozzy]

and that doesn't seem possible without creating an account.

Interesting; the Alternative Provision doesn't have a specific 'price list' as the delivery is bespoke to each child based on their EHCP - so the fact you chose to go to book online for the riding school means some work needs doing on the navigation so you don't get distracted trying to book a riding lesson through the riding school side.

 

[Data Swami]

Like the simplicity.

Only from my initial look. The main image is really pixelated on my screen (Not sure if thats cus of the 4k resolution but its bad)

Also might just be a me thing. The nav bar whenever it has a drop down I have a habit of clicking the top bar first (So alternative provisions etc) before then clicking something lower down. It works for Riding School and Contact but not the other 2)

Think pricing would be good too and just thinking who would be the usual person going to the site the riding school element has alot of navigation options to choose which path you want to take

 

[fisicx]

I clicked on Alternative Provision and the page reloaded. Very confusing.

I expected to be taken to a new page and from there have the options seen in the dropdown.

On this page it's very wordy:

BHS Changing Lives through Horses - Alternative Provision

MA Equestrian is a SEND and SEMH friendly Alternative Provision delivering Changing Lives through Horses programs in partnership with the BHS.

maequestrian.co.uk

Not sure who you are targeting but:

"Empowering young people to thrive through equestrian learning, confidence-building, and life skills development."

is a horrible bit of business speak.

Maybe if I'm a parent with a child that needs help all those words would make sense but it just confused me as did the Framework pages.

There is no Home link in the main menu. This is particularly important on a phone. Incidentally, flyouts on a phone have very poor usability - especially with a nested menu.

The Book online says I need to be logged in to do anything. And it's off site with no apparent route back to the main site. Do you really need to use a third party to make a booking? It's something that can easily be integrated into a WP site and be much more user friendly.

You need more pictures!

 

[Ozzy]

Thank you @fisicx and yes, we definitely need more pictures. We've just moved to a new location and have a photographer coming in November for pictures, especially as we have two streams (and Kingfishers) in the area, which is great for the nature trails.

Not sure who you are targeting but:

The target audience are Local Authorities and Schools, so the language is geared towards them.

Do you really need to use a third party to make a booking? It's something that can easily be integrated into a WP site and be much more user friendly.

In this instance that is a bit like telling Barclays they only need to record money in and money out, why don't they use Wordpress
EC Pro handles all the H&S, Licencing and governance requirements, horse records and vetting, farrier, everything legal, personnel records, the lesson booking is just a tiny bit of it ... although the online booking has absolutely nothing to do with the Alternative Provision.
Almost everyone in the UK who rides horses usually has an account in EC Pro that stores their progress, accident and medical history and so on, and those records follow them from riding school to riding school.

The Book online says I need to be logged in

So, because I only asked for feedback on the Alternative Provision pages, and both you and @MikeJ got distracted and went off into the 'Riding School' pages does tell me something.

 

[fisicx]

That's me skim reading!

Even if you are targeting Local Authorities and Schools it's still very wordy.

One assumes your target are on the site because of your marketing - if so do you need to tell them why horses are so much fun?

I also now realise why I struggled with reading. It's grey words in a grey box on a grey page. Black on White wins every time! Use colours for headers as an attention getter.

And the menu still needs to be reconsidered. I expect to click on the top level item.

 

[MikeJ]

Most of my school reports said "easily distracted"

 

[YasmeenLondon]

Quick feedback on desktop;

I think the website copy is informative and straight to the point, no complaints there.

Simple design, intuitive navigation, personally, I would've created a page for Alternative Provision, similar to the other main categories in the menu.

I also recommend having more pictures in the design, it helps break the monotonous nature of text, but you did a good job with the different coloured sections.

Some of the text is a bit hard to read, so I ran it through accessibility checks and as expected, the hard to read sections were failing accessibility contract tests, for example using #FFFFFF as foreground and #9BB393 as the text has a contrast ratio of 2.26:1 (does not meet the minimum of 4.5:1 for normal sized text) or #F8F8F8 as foreground and #868686 as text has contrast ratio of 3.42:1 (does not meet minimum required for normal sized text)

 

[Nick@Daydot]

I get two cookie popups.

The section (and the site) isn't accessible.

Text over the main image has line breaks in the middle of words on mobile
If the target audience knows what 'Alternative provision' is then partly fine, I wouldn't be sure, and assume that users who are just there for the normal school might not, and you don't want to distract or confuse them.

As other mentioned, because 'book online' is on the page, it's assumed to be relevant.

When I click on 'refer a student' nothing happens.

It's entirely unclear who this is targeted at. Can anyone refer a student?

The border above 'achievers framework' needs more spacing.

On mobile leave more space below the button for achievers framework to separate it from the other section.

On desktop align the two buttons.

It's not immediately clear that 'our impact' are user references. I'd have a different design stye for these with quote marks and a clearer heading.

There's a button 'make a referral' which presumably will do the same thing as 'refer a student'. Just use the same terminology where they do the same thing, or it can cause confusion.

On the EOTAS page the vertical spacing throughout the page needs sorting out.

The leadership awards page starts "The leadership awards focus on building and developing important life and work skills that will be beneficial to them in any future education or career choice. " ... Who is 'them'? It then says 'All the Horse Explorer Awards...' Is the leadership award a subset of Horse Explorer? It's not clear. It reads like the text has been lifted from somewhere and is out of context, making assumptions about what the reader knows. I don't get what the qualification will enable the student to lead. What's 'leadership' about it, as opposed to the learning of the other courses? Is it still just for children?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

My two penneth...........

Nice font, works for the headline but makes my eyes 'buzz' when reading the sub text on a large desktop monitor. How so on a phone?

Empowering young people to thrive through equestrian learning, confidence-building, and life skills development.​

On front page......
Highlight the selling point with an emboldened byline underneath 'Achievers Framework (ages 5-11) Offering children the chance to begin their equestrian journey.......

Same for the older age group.......
'Offering a structured pathway through 9 horse care awards and 9 riding awards'

On the Alternative Provision section and you may have worked out now that I like to see the Cart before the Horse.........how about putting the bullet points before the sub text?

Already been said: Images

 

[Ozzy]

I only get to do a little bit of this in between my 'day job' so have made a couple of tweaks, while trying to work within the purchased theme (as I am not a web designer - this is Dad helping daughter).

I have made the CTA's consistent, edited the font used for the client testimonials (they were taken from her Facebook and Google reviews), and edited the text from white to black over the cloloured background to hopefully be easier to read.
I have ONLY edited the following page, so no need to go any deeper
Are these tweaks an improvement?

BHS Changing Lives through Horses - Alternative Provision

MA Equestrian is a SEND and SEMH friendly Alternative Provision delivering Changing Lives through Horses programs in partnership with the BHS.

maequestrian.co.uk

 

[Nick@Daydot]

I only get to do a little bit of this in between my 'day job' so have made a couple of tweaks, while trying to work within the purchased theme (as I am not a web designer - this is Dad helping daughter).

I have made the CTA's consistent, edited the font used for the client testimonials (they were taken from her Facebook and Google reviews), and edited the text from white to black over the cloloured background to hopefully be easier to read.
I have ONLY edited the following page, so no need to go any deeper
Are these tweaks an improvement?

BHS Changing Lives through Horses - Alternative Provision

MA Equestrian is a SEND and SEMH friendly Alternative Provision delivering Changing Lives through Horses programs in partnership with the BHS.

maequestrian.co.uk

The testimonials are in italics which are hard to read for some. The buttons text is low contrast against the background and every word is capitalised, which is harder to scan.

The fundamental problem is that the user has to do the work to figure out what this is all about and who it's for. The overall design doesn't help.

Sorry, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but this sort if thing while it can seem so simple, isn't.

 

[security_guard]

I would improve the logo carousel located near the footer. The images are distorted not the same size. I would remove the arrows and have it automatically animated scrolling