Nonprofit
Background
The New Leaders Foundation needed a website to support the rollout of a brand new version of the Data Driven Districts dashboard for the Department of Basic Education in South Africa. This was part of a much wider transition to a new platform, where users needed to be guided through changing access points, login requirements, and support pathways as the rollout progressed. The website therefore had to do far more than introduce the new dashboard. It needed to act as a clear, practical layer around a complex programme rollout.
The scale of the programme also made that especially important. Data Driven Districts supports education officials across 24,000 schools, operates across 8 of South Africa’s 9 provinces, and serves over 13,000 active users. With a mixed user base and different levels of technical comfort, the website needed to make it easier for people to find the correct dashboard version, access login and training support, and stay informed as the platform evolved.
Approach
The project started with an intensive wireframing and UX phase to make sure the website was being structured correctly from the outset. A major focus was helping users find the right dashboard version quickly, reducing confusion around login and access, and making support content and training resources straightforward to navigate.
Once the UX had been resolved, I translated it into a high-fidelity design in Figma and developed the website with flexibility and ease of maintenance in mind. The content structure was planned so support material could be updated quickly and consistently as the rollout progressed, without creating unnecessary friction or inconsistency across the site.
Over time, the website continued to adapt alongside the programme, supporting phased changes to access and login flows, regularly updated help content, training resources, downloads, news posts, a live dashboard demo, and event-related information such as the DBE Data Summit.
Sophia Dower
