College Background Old website Project Research New website Development Implementation Lessons learned.

Designing a New User-Centric College Public Website –

Lessons Learned

Khouloud HawasliActing Manager, Electronic Communication services

George SackettWeb Content Supervisor

College BackgroundOld website Project ResearchNew website Development ImplementationLessons learned

Outline

Largest community college system in Missouri serving an area of about 700 square miles; created by area voters in 1962

Four campuses, three education centers Transfer, career and developmental programs Non-credit continuing education courses Various workforce development initiatives A “League for Innovation” institution

About STLCC

25,000 credit students each semester 40,000 non-credit each year 31,000 workforce development students 130 credit programs 57 workforce development programs 1,800 faculty (420 FT) 3,500 employees

Numbers

College Websites Public Website Users Website

(faculty, student organizations, classes and staff)

Intranet (three sites: key resources menu, static content pages, and a SPS2001 document center)

Why Create a New Site?

“One College”, … but not a well defined identity on the web site

Issues and problems with old site

Developing a new brand identity for the institution

Site is difficult to navigate – and to find content – 16,000 pages with no standard navigation!

Internal use content mixed in with other content

Pages did not follow best practices for web design

Most pages did not comply with our loosely defined college standards

Issues and Problems

Common to have over 2,000 broken links Non-compliance with ADA requirements Out-of-date content No unified appearance – brand identity was

fragmented at best to almost non-existent No workflow, review or style editing process

Issues and Problems (cont)

Taking content from the existing 16,000 pages to distill the items of need to audiences

Taking multiple sub-sites (i.e., programs and departments) and integrating them together

Content Challenges

Meetings at each campus to introduce project and seek cooperation and support

2005 – Audience research conducted by contracted firm◦ Current and prospective students – focus groups

and online surveys◦ Continuing Education and high school guidance

counselors – focus groups

◦ Key administrators and faculty influencers – phone interviews

◦ Larger sample of faculty and staff – random, online survey

Discovery – Audiences

Registration Hub for student news and communications Access to all programs and classes Class availability, times/room numbers,

changes, grades Do everything online:

◦ Pay for classes◦ Get parking passes◦ Get books◦ “Not have to go to the campus”

Student Web Expectations

Ervin Marketing Report, May 2006

73% - accurate and timely information 70% - easy registration process 66% - ease of navigation 61% - descriptions of programs 55% - easy payment

Most Important Student Website Expectations

Ervin Marketing Report, May 2006

84.7% - Registration 82.4% - Student Resources 81.8% - Class Schedules 77.9% - Blackboard 60.3% - College Catalog

29.9% - can’t find what they are looking for

Reasons Students Say They Access the Public Website

Ervin Marketing Report, May 2006

Studied site’s navigation and search capabilities

92 charts provided a snapshot of the site’s technological structure, showing the:◦ Types of pages (html, asp, etc.)◦ Graphics used (jpg, gif, swf, etc.)◦ Links (html, CSS, mailto, scripted)◦ Server side (SSI) and client scripting◦ Other document types (pdf, doc, xls, ppt, etc.)

Discovery – Technical

One-on-one interviews with:◦ Senior administrators◦ Technology executives◦ Student services staff◦ Web coordinators◦ and others

These employees were directly related to the web site’s operation, administration, updates and/or maintenance

Discovery – Web Operations

Objectives for the New Site

Strategic

Technical

User-centric

The existing public website will be replaced in its entirety

The new website will focus on the needs of our external constituents and will incorporate the College’s new marketing, branding and image campaign

Project Scope

Intended to increase enrollment at the College

Align with the college strategic mission Simplify the experience for students Management, faculty, staff and

administrators given the ability to develop and update content to web-site

Project Intentions

The contents of the new website will be developed by the outside vendor

The new web site will utilize the Serena Collage web content management system to simplify the publishing process and enable a workflow driven web authoring environment

The Game Plan

OverallTechnicalUser-Centric

Objectives

Rebrand the site to project STLCC as one college

Build a site that allows visitors to select a path based on personal needs

Create a new web content delivery system:◦ Easy to update◦ Reinforces web standards◦ Provides a consistent user experience◦ Flexible to respond to changing needs◦ Embeds review, tracking and accountability

Overall Objectives

Acquire and deploy technology that expedites and streamlines the ongoing content development and maintenance of the site

Continually evaluate the site’s effectiveness by reviewing traffic metrics, click paths, on site searches, and user studies

Use the fault-tolerant design of the existing site

Create an agile technical environment for future web-based functionalities

Technical Objectives

Understand the current user experience (qualitative research) and issues

Determine features and functionalities desired by users

Reorganize and rewrite the content to fit the needs of our target audiences

Integrate the site into the ongoing, daily processes of the college

User-Centric Objectives

College• Leadership Team• Ad Hoc Web Advisory Committee• Management Team• Technical Team• Developer Team• Content Team

Non-College (Vendors)◦ Millennium Communications◦ Tower 29

Project Team

Project Milestones

www.stlcc.edu Architecture

Huge change in the culture of the way the website was maintained

Shifting responsibility for campus Community Relations and web coordinators

Web Authoring as a distributed responsibility

Identify person(s) responsible for web authorship

Project Change Issues

Role of the Ad Hoc Web Advisory Committee – taxonomy (navigation, structure, organization)

Frequently accessed content on home page Content management system to assure fresh,

reviewed content Must be timely, accurate and consistent

Navigation and Content Design

Provides structure to unstructured content

Organizes together content from multiple sources

Some users never search; and in many cases search isn’t as effective as structure

Allows users to find the content they need in a way that makes sense to them

Taxonomy Creates Navigation

Intent to use an outside firm on contract

◦ Encountered difficulties as they did not understand the intricacies of the college

More effective was the work of district community relations personnel

Reviews and edits were done internally– a very slow process

Final editing and last checks for AP style by vendor

Content Development

User Evaluation and Discussion

Home Page

Newsroom

About the College

Campus Page

‣ Automate consistency and standards through templates and required elements

‣ Rich text editing eliminates the need for HTML or web editor experience

‣ Manage workflows with the combination of task management and a review/approval system

Web Content Management System

‣ Allow authorized users to easily add or update content “anytime, anywhere” through a browser

‣ Roll pages back to a previous version as needed

‣ Schedule content replacement or removal

Web Content Management System

Calendar System

SungardHE Banner (ERP) Self-Service BlackBoard LMS Home-grown applications

◦ Course Schedule◦ Schedule of Late-Starting Courses◦ Employee Directory◦ Continuing Education Registration◦ Student Application◦ Sexual Harassment, FERPA, and Diversity Tutorials

New system – Windows Live student e-mail

Integration With Existing Systems

Banner Self-Service Portal

Course Schedule

Employee Directory

‣ New website went live March 9:http://www.stlcc.edu

‣ In order to have a go-live date, a “line” had to be drawn somewhere on what content would be part of the initial deployment

We used the Ad Hoc Web Committee to develop basic guidelines for what was to be included for Phase 1

There are some who feel their content was left out when it is too important to not be included

Phase I Completed

Focus can get redirected based upon urgency of communications

Underestimating timeline for content and technical specifications development

Working with several different vendors

Vendor reshuffle

Deploying new WCMS in conjunction with new site

Challenges Along the Way

New positions, new employees◦ no blueprint for their jobs◦ in a large, complex organization

Internal audiences – time it takes to communicate – delays caused by summer schedules

Managing expectations of new site – 1,600 vs. 16,000 pages

◦ Where is my information???

Challenges Along the Way

“Phase 2” begins - Corrections and updates WCMS contributor training New content based on feedback and metrics

analysis Development of interactive, more dynamic

content Development of department and unit’s pages

“Phase 2+” - Student credentials and my.stlcc.edu student portal

Future

Implementation of Enrollment management◦ CRM◦ Variable web content/print

Addition of content that was not included in the first phase

Blogs/Social networking Continued focus on Brand Management

Future plans

The overall goal of project of creating a user-centric website was achieved

The new website contributed to the goal of increase in enrollment

Phase I rolled out on time The use of an outside evaluation

◦ Provided confirmation and justification for taking on this huge project

◦ Justified funding for project◦ Identified the need for dedicated positions

National Council for Marketing and Public Relations – Silver Award

Things That Went Well

Active involvement of the faculty and staff Use of outside vendors

◦ Discovery◦ Web development

Good internal cooperation between technical and content

Smooth transition to new site

Things That Went Well

Integration of home grown apps successful WCMS – edit, review and deploy functions

going smoothly Implementation of AP style Setting a deadline and trying to stick to it -

forced us to make some tough decisions to meet that deadline.

Things That Went Well

Outside vendor◦ Web development team needed a lot of effort to

get up to speed with WCMS◦ Vendor used for writing of content never really hit

the mark – ended up using in house resources

Things That Could Have Gone Better

WCMS◦ Issues integrating applications vendor never got a

handle on this◦ User interface – edit function not as “friendly” as

desirable – Many support calls from occasional user

◦ Task management is cumbersome◦ Uncertain future of vendor support◦ Required desktop settings not necessarily

compatible with campus settings

Things That Could Have Gone Better

In house team undermanned – made meeting deadlines very challenging

Content still needs to be re-written in a more “user friendly” style – easier to read

Better information dissemination – communication/feedback process with faculty and staff during development – prior to implementation

Faster implementation of additional/missing content ◦ Departments◦ Dynamic content

Things That Could Have Gone Better

Hard coding of static information – outside vendor not familiar with internal resources for dynamic content

We had more hardware than was necessary – ASP & ASP.NET integration WCMS not realized until after learning more about WCMS capability

Internal technical staff would have benefitted from earlier training

Identifying and training more content contributors earlier

Things That Could Have Gone Better

Contact Us

Khouloud HawasliActing Manager, Electronic Communication Services

[email protected] [email protected]

George SackettWeb Content Supervisor

[email protected] [email protected]

Presentation is available online at:http://www.stlcc.edu/presentations/