Empowering Schools of the Arts with a Scalable, User-Friendly System

StudyAlong, a leading Swedish provider of Schools of the Arts services for municipalities, required a system overhaul to maintain its market leadership. The platform needed a design refresh, technical upgrades, and mobile responsiveness to meet future demands. Crowd Collective led the transformation with a design-first approach, creating an intuitive user experience for students, parents, and teachers while preserving core functionalities.

A modern tech stack (Node.js, Next.js, React, TypeScript) was implemented to enhance scalability and simplify future recruitment. StudyAlong's PHP developers were trained to adopt the new technologies, and a frontend developer was onboarded to ensure continuity.

The result was a responsive, accessible, and modernized system poised for growth.

Project highlights

• Design-first approach to streamline workflows for all system users
• Accessibility-focused design adhering to WCAG standards
• Integration of AI tools to enhance development efficiency
• Implementation of modern technologies (Node.js, Next.js, React, TypeScript)
• Training in-house backend developers on the new stack
• Recruitment and onboarding of a frontend developer
• Creation of a scalable design system with reusable components and a refreshed visual identity

StudyAlong's platform, supporting cultural education services for 137 municipal clients, was crucial to cultural schools across Sweden. However, its outdated, desktop-only design and limited technical foundation hindered future ambitions. The system comprises:

• A course catalog and landing page with e-commerce functionality
• An administrative system and CMS for teachers and administrators
• A learning platform for parents and students

To retain its market-leading position, the platform needed a complete redesign and rebuild. StudyAlong's PHP-focused development team lacked experience in modern full-stack frameworks, making external support critical.

Crowd Collective applied a design-first approach, reimagining StudyAlong’s three-part system (course catalog, learning platform, and administration/CMS) from the perspectives of students, parents, teachers, and administrators. The result was a user-centric system with improved usability and recognizable core functionalities. A refreshed visual identity and new UI components were packaged into a comprehensive design system to ensure future scalability.

The modern tech stack (Node.js, Next.js, React, and TypeScript) was chosen for its versatility, talent availability, and synergy within the JavaScript ecosystem. This enabled a seamless handover to StudyAlong's in-house team.

Development began once the design phase was complete. Crowd Collective trained StudyAlong's PHP developers to transition to Node.js and supported the recruitment of a frontend developer to ensure long-term system maintenance. Agile methodologies kept the project on track, while AI tools like v0, GitHub Copilot, and Cursor boosted efficiency throughout development.

The updated system delivers a modern, responsive, and accessible experience for all users, from desktop to mobile. StudyAlong's developers gained new skills in modern frameworks, and AI tools were successfully integrated into workflows.

The scalable design system makes it easy to add new components, and the platform's refreshed look ensures it meets both current and future demands. With new frontend developers onboarded, StudyAlong is well-positioned to continue its growth and innovation in cultural education.

"The team at Crowd Collective has been instrumental in helping us achieve our ambitious goal of creating a future-proof system that empowers Schools of the Arts and Music Schools. We are extremely satisfied with the results and are now ready to expand StudyAlong into more markets across Europe.

We consider our colleagues at Crowd Collective an integral part of our in-house team. They have demonstrated exceptional professionalism, reliability, and provided invaluable outside perspectives that have greatly helped us shape a modern, user-friendly system. Beyond their high level of expertise, they consistently bring an optimistic, can-do attitude to every project, making them a pleasure to work with.

At StudyAlong, we are committed to innovation and continuously evolving our services and products to meet the needs of our target audience. This commitment is driven by a deep understanding of our customers' customers, engagement with the latest research, trends in development, and ongoing social discussions. We are not afraid to explore new approaches.

StudyAlong will continue to lead the innovative development in our field, remaining a first mover that others look to for inspiration. After an incredibly productive eighteen months, I wholeheartedly recommend Crowd Collective as a partner for any development project."