NextStudent Design Contest

On February 27, 2008, NextStudent launched its first ever design contest to invite the online community to speak up and take part in shaping the new look for the NextStudent website.

We received 14 designs from six entrants across the country, and what we saw were some pretty awesome designs.After three contest rounds — a popular vote (Round 1), multivariate testing (Round 2), and an executive vote (Round 3) — we’ve found our winner …

Andrea Farnsworth with her V4 design:

This design received the most votes in Round 1 (69 votes) and blew past the competition as well as NextStudent’s current homepage design in the testing phase of Round 2 (results below). It was also received favorably by the executive team in Round 3.

Unfortunately, since Andrea Farnsworth is a NextStudent employee, she isn’t eligible for the $2,000 grand prize money.

Although we hadn’t originally designated a second- or third-place prize, in recognition of their hard work and multiple submitted designs, we’ve decided to award both Serg Brathwaite and Shaun Moynihan a runner-up cash prize. Thank you to all the contestants who entered the design contest. All the designs we received were extremely professional, and we saw many innovative features in each design.

Round 2 A/B Testing Results

For those designers who advanced to Round 2 and would like to know how their design tested against the competition, here are the A/B testing results from Google’s Website Optimization tool: