Het Gele Laarsje

01

The proposal

Het Gele Laarsje is a monthly children’s clothes swap in Leeuwarden. Inside a team of six, I researched, designed and built the whole proposal myself.

The client approved the direction and decided against a new website, because she had other problems to solve first. What exists is a complete proposal and a prototype you can click through.

02

Why it had to be simpler

The organisation’s problem showed up at the events themselves: people arrived confused, and the swap runs on volunteers, on one evening a month.

The old site had the answers, but spread over many pages in long paragraphs, and it already showed the symptoms: the instruction to walk past the queue repeats on three pages, and one question asks where to go once you are inside.

So the proposal is built around one simple first visit. Check-in is the one rule repeated everywhere: tell a volunteer what you came for, and they point you to the next step. Everything else is made to be read at a glance: a path for each reason to come, rules that fit on a card, and questions grouped by the moment you need them.

Nobody should have to understand the whole system before they come.

03

What changes

The tour above shows the three main pages. These are four more changes, from the rest of the site.

3.1The rules in one place

BeforeThe house rules are spread over the swap page: sizes, types, condition and brands in paragraphs, the checklist at the bottom of the FAQ, and the 15-item limit only inside a question.

AfterOne Rules page that opens with a packing check on a single card, followed by worked examples of what you can take home.

3.2A mission you can find

BeforeThe story behind the swap is about 220 words at the bottom of the home page, and not in the menu.

AfterA Mission page in the menu: bring in, move on, use longer, then what happens each round and sourced figures on clothing’s footprint.

3.3Baby clothes, one of three paths

BeforeBuying baby clothes had its own page behind a separate tab: six steps in wide paragraphs.

AfterOne of the three paths on How it works: a short intro and the baby flow at a glance, with the terms on the Rules page.

3.4Questions grouped by moment

BeforeA flat list of questions at the bottom of each page, with the same questions repeated from page to page.

AfterOne FAQ, grouped by when you need it: before you come, at check-in, and rules and logistics. One answer says it plainly: you don’t need to understand the whole system before you come.

04

How it is built

4.1

Mobile first

Every page was designed for a phone first, then widened.

What I delivered

—A content architecture for the whole site.
—A design direction document.
—A system of brand tokens.
—Mobile-first CSS, organised in cascade layers.
—Copy rules, each backed by a source.
—A size calculator for parents.
—The prototype itself, deployed as a static HTML and CSS site.