Daytona State College
Daytona State College was long overdue for a website redesign when they came to our team. The website was outdated, content was difficult to find and repetitious, and administrators were having to field hundreds of calls from students unable to access key information on the website. They were ready for a refreshed look and a streamlined strategy.
My Role
UX Research
In my role as a researcher on this project, I interviewed faculty, staff, and students of Daytona State to understand the pain points they were experiencing, and what they envisioned for a new website.
UX Strategy
As a UX Strategist on this project, I supported the Director of UX & Content Strategy in sitemap creation and led the effort of creating wireframes for the new site. I worked collaboratively with design, brand, and developer teams to ensure a polished, functional finished product.
The Problem
Role at this phase: Researcher
Skills: Interviews, collaborative workshop, competitive analysis, site audit, analytics analysis
Through the research phase, it became clear that virtually all users were relying on a site-wide search to find the information they needed, and even that was unreliable, as it regularly turned up pages with outdated information. During this phase, I heard from faculty, staff, and students, and reviewed competitor sites, as well as page analytics to understand how users were accessing and using the website. The end of this phase culminated in a research presentation that highlighted the issues users were facing with the site, as well as opportunities for the new website.
The Process
Role at this phase: Strategist
Skills: Sitemap, wireframes, component documentation
Building on the research, I worked with the Director of UX & Content Strategy to create a new sitemap that better organized pages based more traditional higher education page organization, to ensure that users no longer needed to rely on site-wide search alone to find what they needed. Following a full content audit of the current website, I led the creation of wireframes that captured all of the content needs of the current site, in a new, user-friendly way. I worked with the brand strategy team to ensure content needs were also met from a brand perspective. I organized all new components into documentation that supported both design and development teams.
A portion of the new sitemap. Content was organized based on competitive analysis and analytics review.
To accommodate for an expansive sitemap, the new website incorporated a robust drop down menu that provided higher visibility and promoted navigation.
Since users were leaning on site-wide search, it only made sense to make the search better. The new search menu allowed users to identify themselves from one of three key user groups and see top pages related to them.
The new website included a side navigation, streamlined components to organize content, and quotes and images for a stronger brand.
The new menu, brought to life through design.
The new search in design.
The website included several opportunities to highlight the new brand.
Component documentation supported the admins' ability to use the site now and in the future.
The Outcome
Role at this phase: Strategist
Skills: QA, content documentation
The Daytona State College website is currently in back end development, but the administrators and stakeholders are already impressed and excited for the results. During the front end development process, I led the QA effort from the strategy perspective, ensuring functionality via cross-browswer testing. I worked collaboratively with a designer to create content documentation that supports ability to understand the components available to them, prepare content based on the components, and future-proofs their ability to continue to add new content to the site as necessary.
This project was supported by:
Creative Director, overseeing design
Brand Director, overseeing brand
UX & Content Director, supporting UX Research and overseeing UX Strategy
Three designers
Two front end developers
External back end developers
Project Manager