Elevate mobile UX and performance
Design a mobile-first experience so parents can explore programs, locations, and FAQs without delay on any device.
Tighten Core Web Vitals and page weight to keep the new site feeling fast and responsive.
Little Sunshine's Playhouse
A case study for early educators
Website redesign + brand refresh
Little Sunshine's Playhouse operates more than forty boutique, Reggio-inspired early learning centers across the United States. In person, their schools feel warm, welcoming, and full of child-led wonder.
Online, however, their legacy templated site felt dated and inflexible—especially as the organization grew. The in-house build no longer reflected the classroom magic families experienced every day or the sophistication of a multi-location operation.
Together, we set out to build a mobile-first website and refreshed brand that showcases Little Sunshine's classrooms, streamlines updates for their team, and turns the site into a reliable lead generator for every school.
Our role
- Web Design + Development
- Brand Refresh
- Content Strategy
- WordPress CMS Implementation
Bright project beginnings
As Little Sunshine's continued to open new schools, their team needed a digital experience that could keep pace with growth. The previous site did its job in the early days, but over time it became harder to manage, harder to scale, and increasingly out of step with the in-person experience families loved.
Our shared goal was simple: create a digital home that feels as warm and thoughtful as their classrooms while giving the internal team the tools they need to keep content, enrollment funnels, and brand storytelling moving at the speed of their expansion.
Understanding initial roadblocks
The legacy site leaned on a rigid, text-heavy theme that left little room for dynamic layouts or rich storytelling. Visual design cues skewed dated, and important content was often buried inside dense paragraphs instead of scannable blocks.
Navigation friction made it difficult for parents to quickly find nearby schools or key information. On mobile—where many parents do research between work and family commitments—slow load times and clunky page structures made the experience feel out of sync with the brand's promise.
In short, the digital presence undersold the care, imagination, and professionalism families experienced in every classroom.
What we set out to do
Tell a richer brand story
Differentiate play-based, Reggio-inspired learning from traditional daycare through photography, copy, and layout.
Highlight the “Little Sunshine’s Experience” from drop-off to pick-up so families can picture a day in the life.
Empower the marketing team
Introduce flexible WordPress components with brand guardrails so editors can build landing pages quickly.
Future-proof the system with reusable blocks that keep design, typography, and color consistent over time.
Drive the right conversions
Strengthen two critical funnels—contact inquiries and private tour bookings—across every location.
Make it easy for families to move from curiosity to scheduling a visit in just a few clicks.
From friction to flow
A mobile-first layout keeps key information and calls-to-action front and center.
Location-aware tools remove friction from searching, filtering, and scheduling a tour.
Our approach
Visual identity
Extended the refreshed brand into digital with sunrise-inspired gradients and a refined pastel palette.
Featured real teachers and children in photography to evoke calm, maternal warmth.
Paired a welcoming serif headline font with a clean sans-serif body to balance sophistication with approachability.
Voice & copy
Shifted dense, internal language into concise, benefit-driven storytelling for parents and caregivers.
Introduced a flagship “Little Sunshine’s Experience” page that walks families through a day in the life—from red-carpet drop-off to chef-prepared lunches.
Ensured every page speaks in Little Sunshine's signature voice while proactively answering common parent questions.
Information architecture & UX
Reorganized content around parent intent—Educational Programs, Schools, About, Careers—so visitors can self-guide.
Used card-based navigation, breadcrumbs, and clear headings to keep families oriented as they explore.
Layered in context-aware calls-to-action that gently nudge users toward the next best step.
Web development
Built a performant, mobile-first WordPress implementation with reusable Flex Blocks tuned for multi-location needs.
Integrated location data, lead forms, and careers feeds so critical tools feel native to the experience.
Implemented accessibility-minded patterns from the start, including semantic structure, color contrast, and keyboard navigation support.
Solution highlights
Find a School locator
A Mapbox-powered search with distance filters and one-tap driving directions removed search friction and contributed to a 33% bump in tour bookings.
Careers portal
An API connection to Little Sunshine's HR platform surfaces open roles across all locations with intuitive filters, helping teams scale staffing as quickly as enrollment.
Media & motion
Video banners and interactive image carousels showcase real classrooms and increased on-page engagement by 32%.
Accessible, editor-friendly CMS
WCAG 2.1 AA-focused patterns, skip links, and keyboard navigation make the site more inclusive while reusable WordPress Flex Blocks keep new pages on-brand.
Numbers that shine: post-launch results
Within three months of launch, the refreshed experience delivered meaningful gains across traffic and engagement. Active users grew 98.9%, tracked events jumped 111.6%, contact-form submissions rose 37.9%, and private tours booked increased 33.1%.
Active users (3 months post-launch)
0
Tracked events
0
Contact-form submissions
0
Tours scheduled
0
What the numbers tell us
These early results point to more than a fresh coat of paint. Mobile traffic in particular surged, with pre-launch active users growing from 28,627 to 73,109—a jump of 87% as more families comfortably explored the site on their phones.
Consolidating resources like the Parent Portal and LuvNotes into a single, well-organized hub drove a 75% increase in page views in the first 90 days, giving existing families a reliable destination for everyday needs.
On the performance side, mobile Core Web Vitals improved dramatically: URLs flagged as needing improvement dropped from 117 to 7 on mobile and from 501 to 9 on desktop, and all poor CLS/LCP URLs were eliminated.
A partnership that keeps growing
Launch day was a milestone, not an ending. Post-launch, we extended the refreshed visual language into an enrollment brochure used during tours and community events, and we continue to support Little Sunshine's with hosting, regular site updates, and on-call enhancements.
The new site proves that a purposeful blend of brand storytelling, thoughtful UX, and technical excellence can turn casual browsers into confident, tour-booking leads. Nearly doubled users, triple-digit engagement gains, and dramatically improved Core Web Vitals all reinforce a simple truth: strategy matters.
Most importantly, the refreshed visuals now echo the warmth families feel at each school, while flexible WordPress blocks empower the marketing team to evolve content at the pace of their growth. For any multi-location organization balancing storytelling with conversion goals, this project shows how aligned strategy, persona-focused design, and performance-first engineering can carry families from first click to enrollment.
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