Case Study
Designing the Present and Future of the Illinois Report Card
This case study highlights the ongoing partnership between the Illinois Interactive Report Cards (IIRC) office at Northern Illinois University to produce the Illinois Report Card, an interactive website that annually reports how schools, districts, and the state are performing with respect to various educational goals.
Project Overview
The Illinois Report Card is an interactive, public-facing website that delivers timely information about public schools and districts across Illinois. Published by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), the Report Card serves as a vital resource for families, educators, policymakers, and community members in Illinois seeking to understand school performance across numerous indicators. The site presents data on academic outcomes, learning environment, equity, finances, and student demographics through clear, intuitive visualizations and explanations.
The Illinois Report Card enables users to explore trends, compare schools and districts, and engage in informed discussions about education in Illinois. By surfacing insights about the conditions of education in Illinois, the Report Card supports efforts to promote better outcomes for all learners in the state.
The data featured on the Illinois Report Card is primarily collected by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) through established systems such as the statewide Student Information System, with contributions from school districts throughout the academic year. In addition, school leaders have the ability to contribute and update narrative content within the “highlights” section of their school’s profile on the site, ensuring the inclusion of timely, community-specific accomplishments and priorities.
The Report Card offers a comprehensive view of every public school and district in Illinois, organized in a way that supports both quick insights and deeper exploration. Each school’s Snapshot page features high-level “Fast Facts,” while additional tabs provide detailed data on academic progress, school environment, students, educators, and highlights.
Our Contribution to the Success of the Illinois Report Card
The Illinois Interactive Report Cards (IIRC) office at Northern Illinois University is ISBE’s technical and design partner in bringing the Report Card to life. The IIRC team develops and maintains the platform, presenting detailed education data in ways that are understandable for a wide range of users and communities throughout the state.
Since 2016, Collaborative Communications has worked alongside the IIRC team to enhance the design and usability of the Illinois Report Card. We contribute strategic content development, editorial expertise, and user-centered visual design to help ensure that new pages and features are engaging, accessible, and easy to navigate. Through this partnership, our team helps the Illinois Report Card serve as a valuable tool for informing the public, increasing transparency, and, ultimately, helping to improve educational outcomes statewide.
Success Factors
Our work centers on an iterative creative process that prioritizes user-centered design and accessibility, both in terms of content and functionality. In partnership with the team at NIU—and based on direction from ISBE and data that the agency prioritizes, we design and test the new visualizations and pages that will be published in a given Report Card, create enhancements to existing pages, and periodically refresh the overall aesthetic of the site. The result is a dynamic, user-centered site that provides the most timely information about schools and education available in Illinois.
It is also high-stakes work. The Illinois Report Card receives high volumes of site traffic and is the official (and statutorily required) public reporting vehicle for ISBE. Among the factors that have contributed to our success are:
Careful listening and adaptability. We conscientiously serve as the partner NIU needs us to be. At times, this means providing consultative, future-oriented recommendations about overall site design and opportunities for enhancements. At others, it means making painstakingly detailed updates to mockup sets for use in securing agency approval.
Content and technical knowledge. We combine deep contextual understanding of public education systems and data reporting with user-centered design expertise. This allows us to see the bigger picture our work is part of while also ensuring that what we design will enable users to clearly understand and easily navigate a site that is both wide and deep and full of complexity.
Reliability and consistency. For nearly a decade, week in and week out, we’ve produced designs and other creative assets to support the NIU and the Illinois Report Card, becoming a partner NIU and ISBE can trust to deliver.