West Dean College, a world-renowned centre for arts and conservation education, needed to modernise its short course booking system. The existing setup relied on three disconnected systems: CoRaider (bookings), Kinetic (internal scheduling), and the existing front-end website (course content), resulting in heavy manual administration, inefficiencies, and a poor student experience.
With CoRaider due to reach end-of-life in December 2025, Factory Pattern was engaged to lead a discovery phase and provide a clear, evidence-based recommendation for the future platform.
In-depth
User Research
Evidence-based
Recommendations
Unsupported booking system – CoRaider was a bespoke .NET build with no CMS, no API, and no future support.
Fragmented processes – Kinetic, CoRaider, and the website worked in silos, requiring duplicate data entry and CSV uploads.
Heavy admin burden – Programming, bookings, finance, and marketing teams each had to reconcile data manually.
Poor student experience – Limited visibility of course availability, no booking accounts, and disconnected accommodation options.
Scalability risk – Staff warned that if course volumes grew, the current process would quickly become unmanageable.
Factory Pattern ran a structured discovery and evaluation process, engaging five departments (Programming, Marketing, Finance, Bookings, and IT) to:
Audit existing systems and workflows, including CoRaider, Kinetic, finance, and e-learning platforms.
Map user journeys and identify friction points in the student booking experience.
Benchmark against competitor booking flows and SEO best practices.
Evaluate three platform options against West Dean’s needs:
WordPress + WooCommerce – quick to implement but plugin-heavy, with long-term scalability risks.
Custom SaaS / microservices architecture – highly modular but complex, costly, and fragmented for staff.
Laravel + Statamic + Resrv – modern, flexible, and centralised, with lower risk and strong long-term maintainability.
Clear, evidence-based recommendation – leadership could move forward with confidence, knowing options had been rigorously compared.
Cross-department alignment – five teams engaged in discovery now share a common roadmap.
Reduced risk – key system gaps and integration needs identified before development.
Defined path to digital maturity – a phased strategy from MVP launch through to long-term integrations.
Book a free discovery call with our team — whether you're launching something new or fixing what’s not working, we’ll help you find the best path forward. No pressure, just expert advice.
We’ve helped other brands in similar industries (or with similar goals) fix what’s broken and boost performance.
Landing Page Redesign & CRO Testing
How we used research into user behaviour to redesign landing pages with clarity, empathy, and conversion in mind.
Strategic Content for Private Boarding School
How we used a strategic content plan and SEO to increase organic traffic by 53%...
Somerset Beds Seamless UX for Confident Ecommerce Conversion
How we helped Somerset Beds, a leading independent bed retailer in the South West, improve customer conversion...
Sign up for our newsletter.
Stay up to date with latest news, updates and general on-goings.
