Apolinar was brought in to fast-track not only the re-platforming of the website onto a custom API-driven CMS but also to bring NZMA's new brand presence to life online.
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NZMA was undergoing a major brand overhaul by the team at Unsworth Shepherd, with a stunning new range of assets, fonts, and a refreshed colour palette ready to be transposed into a digital space.

Our target audience? Young people uncertain of their next steps beyond high school. There were a few key challenges we needed to address.

• How might we re-platform NZMA to a custom CMS?
• How might we help young people choose a course?
• How might we get young people to campus?
• ...and, how might we do this in under 12 weeks?

We began by conducting market research and discovery to identify key opportunities and challenges for the project. Next, we held a 5-day co-design sprint, bringing all stakeholders together in one room to make informed decisions at rapid speed.
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During the sprint, we identified key user needs and goals, developed solutions to address pain points, and made decisions on key areas to test. On day 4, we created an interactive prototype of the website to test the following:

• Could the user find what they needed efficiently and easily?  
• Does a feature like a career quiz help users select courses to enquire about?
• Does the new design give the feeling of credibility and trust?

We tested the prototype with 28 students across NZMA campuses. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and we made several design adjustments based on their insights.

We worked in 2 week sprints, handing off to the development team at multiple checkpoints throughout. It was important that we collaborated closely with our developer team, constantly checking if there are any timeline risks and providing suitable compromises. We had to be adaptive and problem solve every hurdle.

Integrating the API within the CMS was also essential and completely eliminating the need for manual data entry. Providing an accurate and reliable source of truth for the website.  

We conducted a two-week A/B test comparing the old site to the new one, and the results exceeded expectations.

Lead conversions saw a 32% increase, which the client called "extraordinary." The new site also outperformed the old one by over 1.5% in conversion rates — a small but significant improvement. Bounce rates dropped by nearly 20%, indicating greater user engagement.

While average session duration decreased from 02:04 to 01:22, this was actually a positive shift, as it suggested users were able to find what they needed more efficiently. Additionally, feedback from both current and prospective students has been overwhelmingly positive, giving the new site a strong competitive edge.