CAIS Website Redesign and Development
Stas Udotov
CAIS: Bringing a distinctive educational experience online
Dworkz brought together UI/UX design, content architecture, front-end development, and WordPress CMS implementation for Chinese American International School’s website.
Client and product context
Chinese American International School (CAIS) is a Mandarin immersion school in San Francisco serving students from early childhood through eighth grade. Its website introduces prospective families to the school while connecting current families, alumni, and supporters with community information and resources.
The project brought educational storytelling and practical website functionality into one experience: helping visitors understand CAIS, explore its programs, and take the next step.
User and business problem
Choosing a school requires families to navigate both emotional and practical questions. What makes the education distinctive? Will the program suit their child? What does applying involve?
CAIS’s admission process includes eligibility requirements, inquiries, campus visits, and applications. Making these steps understandable is an important part of supporting prospective families.
The design challenge was to support that decision-making journey while keeping everyday resources accessible to the existing school community. For the school, the website also needed a manageable foundation for publishing and maintaining content.
Constraints and complexity
The website serves audiences with different priorities. Prospective parents need an introduction to the school; returning families often arrive with a specific task in mind.
Its content also spans academic divisions, admission information, school news, community activities, and giving. English and Chinese appear together across the site, adding another consideration for content hierarchy and presentation.
The central challenge was to accommodate this breadth without making every page compete for attention.
Dworkz’s role and services
Dworkz connected the structure, design, and implementation of the website through four core services:
Content architecture: Organizing information into a coherent site structure and page hierarchy.
UI/UX design: Defining navigation, page layouts, and the presentation of content and actions.
Front-end development: Translating the design into the website’s visitor-facing interface.
WordPress CMS: Implementing the content management foundation for ongoing publishing.
This scope connected what visitors experience with how the school maintains the website.
Organize around visitors’ questions
We structured the content around the information families need to understand the school and evaluate its programs. The goal was to give visitors a clear progression from exploration to practical admission information.
Balance storytelling with usability
The interface brought school imagery and educational content together with clear headings, readable layouts, and prominent actions. Page hierarchy helped visitors scan for essential information while leaving room for deeper exploration.
Create consistency across page types
We established shared design patterns for navigation, content sections, and calls to action. These patterns gave different areas of the website a common visual language while accommodating their individual content needs.
Connect design with content management
Front-end development and WordPress implementation translated the page designs into a working publishing environment. The aim was to support routine content updates while maintaining consistency across the website.
The Firedragons representing the Core Values for the Chinese American International School (CAIS) were designed by professional illustrator and CAIS alumna Katrina Soo Hoo '99.
Dworkz created a custom icon set for the CAIS website that brings Chinese-inspired visual references into a contemporary geometric style. A red and golden-yellow palette, accented with white, connects the icons to the school’s cultural identity. Simple circles, squares, and overlapping shapes form recognizable symbols for learning, communication, and community, while details such as a coin-like circle with a square opening offer a more direct reference to Chinese heritage. Consistent proportions and minimal detail give the set a cohesive, playful character that complements CAIS’s educational mission.
Measurable or attributable outcome
Dworkz delivered website work spanning content architecture, UI/UX design, front-end development, and WordPress CMS implementation—connecting the site’s information structure with its interface and publishing foundation.
In addition to top-notch deliverables, Dworkz laid back, but 100% on-point communication and scheduling was truly impressive. They absolutely embodied agile principles without becoming mired in process or process adherence. They also did a fantastic job of bridging the communication gap between our technical and non-technical stakeholders. I loved their work style -- professional, level, steady, and always with an eye on "what's right," instead of "being right."
– Daniel Fettinger, Director of Technology
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Dworkz helps organizations turn complex content into clear digital experiences, from information architecture and interface design through development and CMS implementation.
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Posted Sep 25, 2026
Developed a user-friendly website for CAIS using design and content management.
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