To mark the beginning school year, LASA has introduced a newly-designed website

The school website was officially introduced on Aug. 21 of this year. LASA parent Geeta Suggs, who has created websites for other schools in the past, volunteered to design the site.

Suggs said she hoped to make the information on the new site more accessible and helpful.

“You wouldn’t get this comprehensive high school feeling when you went to our old website,” Suggs said. “You didn’t know that we had fine arts; you didn’t know that we did athletics.”

During the design process, Suggs said she took a practical approach, focusing more on organization than looks.

“My whole belief about websites is that they are functional and useful,” Suggs said. “The aesthetics part comes later. As you have probably seen, on our current website, we don’t have any pictures yet. That’ll be the next step: to make it pretty. But I’m really big on getting communication out.”

Suggs also said she considered the graphic design skill level of other staff members who might need to make changes to the site in the future.

“That was my whole goal: to get things up there as quickly as we could in any easy way,” Suggs said. “I want the website to be easy to maintain by someone that doesn’t have to have an engineering degree.”

LBJ librarian Savanah Truelove said she uses the website on a regular basis. She said that the new design was successful both in functionality and appearance.

“It looks very easy to use,” Truelove said. “I think this will be a great thing for the students to use, and also for parents to use. Speaking as a faculty member, I know I will use it more often. I think students enjoy everything visual because we’re that kind of society, and I think it’s gonna grab them just like it did me.”

LASA Ezine teacher Kate McGuire said that she has experience in the field of graphic design as a layout designer for different newspapers. She said the website design is modern.

“I think the font choices on [the site] are pretty good,” McGuire said. “From a design standpoint, they’re modern, they’re trendy. It’s easier for the eye to look at. I mean, I think LASA is up for a change. We’re actually trying to understand technology instead of shying away from it.”

McGuire said she thinks the site looks good, and represents LASA well.

“You can easily figure out all of the schedules and the staff listings and stuff like that,” McGuire said. “I think it represents LASA well. It shows that we actually know what we’re doing as far as technology. If students were interested in coming to LASA, I think this would be good for them. It would probably spark their interest.”

Suggs said she will continue to update the website as necessary, and that the website will grow and change as the year progresses.