NextStudent Design Contest

Announcing the Winner of the NextStudent Design Contest

admin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:08:32 +0000

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:

(Click image to enlarge)

Original (NextStudent.com)
Combination 1 – Variation 1 (Andrea Farnsworth V4)
Combination 2 – Variation 2 (Serg Brathwaite V3)
Combination 3 – Variation 3 (Shaun Moynihan V3)
Combination 4 – Variation 4 (Serg Brathwaite)
Combination 5 – Variation 5 (Serg Brathwaite V2)

Round Two: NextStudent Design Contest Update

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:07:34 +0000

Round One of the NextStudent Design Contest ended on March 14, and the five designs that received the most votes have now advanced on to Round Two of the contest:

Andrea Farnsworth V4 with 69 votes

Serg Brathwaite V3 with 62 votes

Serg Brathwaite with 58 votes

Shaun Moynihan V3 with 49 votes

Serg Brathwaite V2 with 47 votes

In Round Two, we’ll be adding test links to each of these five designs and then submitting these designs for multivariate testing via Google’s Website Optimizer. Testing will end on March 28, 2008, at 11:59 p.m. MST.

The three designs in Round Two that convert the most visitors (i.e., that have the greatest number of recorded clickthroughs on the test links) during the testing period will be eligible for Round Three.

For more details about the testing in Round Two or about the contest in general, please see the Rules & Regs page, or shoot us an e-mail at NextStudentDesignContest@nextstudent.com.

Thank you to everyone who participated in Round One, and good luck to those currently competing in Round Two!