Lakeside College: concept study
Concept project. Lakeside College is a fictional community college. This is a Thirdhall design and engineering demonstration, not a client engagement. The “before” data comes from real public websites; the “after” is the concept, measured the same way. View the concept
Before: what sites like this look like today
We scanned 12 Rhode Island public college, career-tech, and charter school websites for WCAG 2.1 AA failures on the homepage and a key task page.
- 92%had a serious or critical accessibility failure (11 of 12)
- 7link to no accessibility statement
- 0rely on an overlay widget instead of fixing code
- 68average benchmark score of two Rhode Island public college websites
The problem we designed against
A prospective student wants three answers fast: what can I study, how long does it take, and what does it cost. College sites often spread those across a PDF catalog, a separate tuition page, and an admissions section, so the path from interest to application breaks.
What the concept does
- A program finder that filters by interest, credential, and schedule, and announces results to screen readers.
- Program pages with length, schedule, next start, full-program cost, and two clear next steps.
- Tuition as a plain table, with aid explained before the numbers can scare anyone off.
- Applying as four steps, with “no essay, free, 15 minutes” stated up front.
- A Spanish homepage, linked with proper language markup from every page.
Before and after, same benchmark
| Area | Typical real site (avg of 2) | Concept |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 93 | 100 |
| Documents | 70 | n/a |
| Mobile performance | 55 | 99 |
| Security & maintenance | 80 | 80 |
| Content health | 100 | 100 |
| Language access | 20 | 100 |
| Privacy | 20 | 100 |
| Overall | 68 (D) | 96 (A) |
What this shows, and what it doesn't
- It shows the design patterns and build quality we deliver, measured with the same tools we use on real sites.
- It does not show results with real residents, staff, or traffic. A concept has no users, no legacy content, and no integrations, which makes high scores easier. Those are where real projects get hard.
- Automated checks find a subset of accessibility problems. Real projects add manual testing with assistive technology.
How we'd measure a real engagement
- Benchmark before launch and after, on the same rubric.
- Task completion for the top errands, not page views.
- Calls and emails about questions the site should answer.
- Share of documents that are accessible, and time to publish one.