One year after the project kickoff the new Undergraduate Admissions Web site launches. Of course, we had a little fun the in process. I outlined a few key changes at the bottom of this post but wanted to go through some important changes in detail.

The old site lacked the “experience” factor. Not the hand-holding through the process experience, but the true Wayne State experience. It was dull, had scaled back images and was not inviting overall. We changed all of that with a warm, friendly and exciting new design. We used bold colors, people-focused photography and tilted elements to make certain areas stand out.

Navigation

The navigation was another huge change; we completely overhauled it taking it from the 25+ existing first level menu items to 4. We grouped everything into key areas an end-user would need: “Become a Student,” “Explore,” “Culture” and “Academic Life.” Once a user chooses a path it allows us to get everything else out of the way and focus on what they need.

Content

Last but not least, every single page was examined and rewritten. This by far made the largest impact to our prospective students. The previous site was launched 3 years ago; in that time the content changed frequently but was never looked at as a whole. The new wording makes directions clear, shortens paragraphs and is focused on helping the prospective student.

Traffic

Overall the site as been doing great. Just in the past week we have seen page views up 27%, unique views up 13% and average time spent on the site up from 2:22 to 3:00. We will see shortly how conversions to the online application have been doing.

Key changes

• Overhauled navigation, simplified by task, not audience
• Completely rewritten pages, not just little tweaks
• Design that fits into our newest branding for consistency
• A greater emphasis on photos; larger more vibrant photos
• Larger emphasis on upcoming admissions events
• Consolidated multiple sites, apply.wayne, openhouse.wayne
• Moved the event RSVP’s to the main events.wayne.edu RSVP system

View the new site at: http://admissions.wayne.edu/

GoooOOo Girl! Go go GO GIRL!! So you can probably tell we’re really excited to share this latest addition with you. GO-GIRL which stands for Gaining Options-Girls Investigating Real Life, is an engaging program for middle school girls to help increase their confidence in their academic endeavors. With such energetic target audience, we couldn’t help tap in our playful side during the redesign.

Some of the criteria given to us before the redesign were the use of their colors (purple, fuchsia, and teal), their logo, and with specific request – the use of their yellow stars as much as possible. With such vivid colors, bold logo and embellishment, our main concerns were overcrowding and clashing styles. So how do you design for middle school girls with much flair while still keeping the university’s web standards? Very carefully use their elements and only use them where it counts. Take a look around. We’d love to hear your feedback.

View the site at: http://gogirls.wayne.edu/

The English Language Institute (ELI) is just a small part of the Office of International Programs. We are in the process of realigning and redesigning all sites within the office and ELI was the most ambitious to launch.

Some of the goals for the new ELI site

• Unifying the navigation
• Bringing the site into the central identity
• Show more student
• Student testimonials
• Upcoming events

Branding, Navigation and Content

Looking at the old site there is a horizontal and vertical navigation, 100% width, not much content on the homepage and really didn’t live up to the identity standards of the university. We set out to change all that, the homepage now includes a description, images of students and ways to connect with students.

After talking with students in the program the things that sold them were student testimonials and knowing there are events to connect to other international students. So we made sure they were prominent on the site.

We also centralized the navigation making it easy to scan and pulls the eye to the left. The content pages have all been rewritten to have a student focus to make it more inviting. Overall we have received positive feedback about the redesign.

View the new ELI site at: http://eli.wayne.edu/

The University Pharmacy is a tenant of The Towers Residential Suites. They are a full pharmacy and open to the public. They came to us because their web presence was lacking, it was hard to find what they offered, promotions and basic information.

We took the needs of the pharmacy and its users and designed the site from the ground up. Every piece has the end user in mind and migrating it into our content management system allowed the pharmacy staff to update content and promotions in a timely manner.

The old site was primarily blue and oddly enough had a “EPIC” logo in the top left corner of the site. It is interesting because you would think at first glance this was for EPIC Pharmacy, it was very deceiving.

The other thing about the old homepage was the large amount of text. At first glance it did not engage the user so they were forced to look to the left hand menu to get information. Promotions and other “sticky” information were buried on child pages just waiting to be stumbled upon. For example, the pharmacy will deliver prescriptions anywhere on campus when they are ready. Something students, faculty and staff would find as a great convenience.

We changed all that with the new site having the University Pharmacy logo in the top left, using orange to make an impact and reducing the amount of text on the homepage to make way for promotions and things to catch the user’s eye.

Overall the new site and structure allows for a user experience that matches the convenience and capabilities that the University Pharmacy has to offer.

View the new University Pharmacy site at: http://universityrx.wayne.edu/

Now that classes are in full steam the new Welcome Back Week Web site is up. Unfortunately I don’t have a screen shot of last year’s site with events or navigation but the main change is the design of the site.

The new site has the week spelled out prominently and large buttons to select each date to view events. This year the content pulls directly from the main university events calendar. In years past we only selected a few events to promote, this year including most all events lets students aware of the large array of events each day.

The site overall is simple and straight to the point. The goal with the new design is to make the visuals more solid and clear compared to last year. For example, the extended ribbon on the headers puts a large emphasis on the page headings and key areas.

View the new site at: http://wbw.wayne.edu/

Part of the Division of Research the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (IEHS) has in the past hosted its own site, it was time to bring them into the overall Division of Research look and feel.

The navigation changed slightly to better focus on the users needs and the white background with black text makes the content even easier to read. The visual changes are not earth shattering because it is now in line with the rest of the Division of Research, IEHS does not have news or events or even promotions so the homepage does look a little bland.

The thing that is most impressive is the centralization of the faculty profiles. Before, each faculty member controlled their own pages and there was no consistency to them. Now all the faculty profiles have the same fields, update automatically and the faculty can actually go in and update their own information. This structure makes it easy to scan and find desired faculty.

View the site at: http://iehs.wayne.edu/

The Executive & Professional Development (EPD) is part of the Educational Outreach redesign project. The EPD is a unique part of the university that offer a tailored business training.

Proven, no-nonsense problem-solving strategies to assess and satisfy the specific organizational needs of its clients.  EPD is committed to providing learning programs that are targeted, relevant, fully customized and fully integrated to improve individual capabilities and organizational performance.

The target audience are business owners, startups, and managers looking to train their staff. The overall redesign is based around promoting the services they offer. The use of the Wayne State University colors brought EPD’s identity back to fitting nicely with the rest of the university while still promoting their unique individuality and level of strength. In addition, the imagery now shows off learning and successful business situations instead of lakes.

Comparing the old (left) to the new (right), one can easily see that EPD’s redesign met the primary goal. It now has a dynamic compartmentalized structure, focusing on text and images, where as the predecessor site had information that lack hierarchy and images that did not relate or enhanced the content.

Check out the site at: http://execed.wayne.edu/

Wanting to improve accessibility and promote transparent communication with the student body, the student council sought us out to create a site that would be easy to navigate, clean, and at the same time fun.

The homepage features a promotional section highlighting activities being promoted by the council, the Top Topics section showing new information of importance to students and topics being discussed by the council, and displaying the meeting time and location to encourage involvement.

Checkout the live Student Council Web site at: http://studentcouncil.wayne.edu

The Educational Outreach Web sites consist of promoting classes and services we offer outside of main campus (downtown Detroit). The sites went through a name chance and an identity overhaul. The site is broken down into counties and extension centers. In total you can take Wayne State University classes in 4 counties at currently 7 extension centers. Each extension center has their own course listing and services, we broke the site up by location.

The Big Changes

We added a global navigation to glue all the sites together. This global navigation is crucial for prospective students who come into this site as their “homepage” or first interaction with Wayne State. These links are the core tasks for the university so the extension centers don’t seem so disconnected from main campus.

Courses at each center are now pulled in from the class schedule. This is important because it gives the user personalization and context to what they are looking for. It doesn’t just dump them off on another site with a whole new navigation to learn.

Breadcrumbs orient the user if they come in from a link or search engine. Personally I am not a fan of breadcrumbs but because it is not obvious to realize where each extension center is located.

The Small Changes

Most of the small changes happened behind the scenes come from the positioning of the extension centers from in the past completely separate entities to now options to take classes off main campus and possibly closer to home. The branding of the centers has also been updated to the most recent campaign of Aim Higher. The photos throughout the site are packed with students and faculty instead of buildings.

Checkout the site at: http://educationaloutreach.wayne.edu/

Along side the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs Web site we also launched the newest giving campaign, Aim Higher for Students. The idea is simple, show how much a gift can help a student’s life. Even the smallest gift can make a big difference. Students who might have otherwise had to drop out or go part time or even not start at all are the primary focus.

The goal of this site is to show how giving a little can mean a great deal. The lives you impact will return the favor ten fold in the end. This campaign for students goes beyond the brick and mortar, it shows the true generational impact of gifts to the university.

The centerpiece of the site is a video produced with real students who have received scholarships. In addition impacting quotes and images reinforce how their lives have been changed.

Although there isn’t a lot of pages to the site the goal is simple, push a prospective donor over the edge and get them to donate even just a little, it will not only make them feel good inside but also impact the lives of students they have never met.

The colors and design are simple for a reason, nothing fancy is required to get a simple message across. Real students need your help and it does not take that much effort to extend your hand.

Check out the site and video at http://aimhigherforstudents.wayne.edu/