Building a Better Web Enterprise for Colleges and Universities

Architects of the User Experience

Building a Better University Web Enterprise

2NavigationArts, LLC


What is your college or university’s biggest challenge on the Web?

Too many site stakeholders to make progress

No coherent strategy

Too many messages coming out of a single site

Too many technologies

Other



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Unpacking the University Web Experience



Understand your target audiences, their lifecycles, and how they use your Web site.

Internal Audiences External Audiences

Students and their families Undergrad prospectsFaculty and staff Grad/professional prospectsEngaged alumni Non-degree studentsDonors and partners Potential faculty and staff

Disconnected alumniPotential donors and partnersVisitors and general public

Internal audiences are External audiences arecustomer service audiences. prospects and leads.



The vast majority of university Web sitesblend information across these widely varied audiences, trying to be everything to everyone.



A site that addresses too many divergent audiences is hard to use. Confuses, overwhelms and frustrates users!

Dilutes messaging meant to engage audiences

Promotes site abandonment

Encourages information silos which lead to redundancy and inaccuracy

Hinders search and search engine optimization

Assumes users know exactly what they are lookingfor and how to find it



Your Web strategy should align your organization’s online communication and business goals to your users’ motivations and behaviors.

What’s the best way for a university to accomplish this?



Begin to see your Web enterprise as two sites:

Internal Audiences External Audiences

Portal, intranet, or community .edu persuades and informssite serves and informs internal external audiences.audiences.

Consider the business value of optimizing the user experience – It allows you to serve, inform, and persuade.



.edu site portal site

While separate, the user experience across yourpublic and portal sites should be consistent and unified.



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How to Approach a Unified Web Presence



When considering a unified Web program, what should your primary goals be? Strengthening your online brand identity

Creating an intuitive, engaging Web presence

Improving your transaction channels for key constituencies

Building a site that effectively drives audiences into business channels and increases conversion

Centralizing your content management through governance

Using the Web to facilitate, rather than hinder, information sharing and content collaboration among stakeholders

Optimizing resources invested in the Web enterprise



You may be days, weeks, months or years from your unified Web project, but initiating the following practices will help you advance toward your goals.



Understand User Experience Best PracticesPractice: Research and understand user experience best practices.

Value: This will help you communicate the business value of optimizing the user experience.

Where to start: Familiarize yourself with a range of best practice topics related to web strategy, online information management and content strategy, interaction and interface design, technical and organizational governance models, and usability research.

Recommended resources:

Boxes and Arrows, http://www.boxesandarrows.com

UseIt, http://www.useit.com

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/�

http://www.useit.com/�



Evaluate Your Web Brand SignalPractice: Evaluate the consistency and strength of the university brand across your web enterprise.

Value: This will help you understand how your business units use the web for branding and the types of brand signals your users confront.

Where to start: Surf your site and collect brand signals into a web brand inventory. Use this tool to define your current brand approach: Is it consistent or flexible? Controlled or decentralized? How many brands are there? Are these brands in content or design?

As best as possible, evaluate your brand against the university’s strategic goals and its key competitors.

Use your inventory to answer the question: How do we improve the strength of our university’s web brand signal?



Survey the Competitive LandscapePractice: Perform a comparative analysis of current and aspirational competitor sites and regularly monitor the most effective sites.

Value: This will help you know the competitive landscape and understand how other universities are using the web to support their business areas.

Where to start: Evaluate your competitors’ sites for:

Content

Design

Usability

Brand Strength

Brand Consistency

Use your findings as a benchmark for your own web strategy.



Crunch the NumbersPractice: Evaluate your site analytics, search data, and server logs for trends and insights.

Value: This data is evidence of where and how your web site is meeting user needs or falling short.

Where to start: Evaluate your current analytics and use your findings to make measurable improvements wherever you can, no matter how small. Over time you can track your results and begin to build a case for comprehensive user experience improvements.

Things to evaluate:

Top search terms

Most and least popular pages

Key points of abandonment



Log and Analyze Your ContentPractice: Complete a content inventory and analysis.

Value: The only way to know how to improve your site is to understand it from a user’s perspective. By completing a content inventory and analysis, you will fully understand how your organization’s silos are enacted through your website.

Where to start: Start from the homepage. Navigate hierarchically and laterally to understand the relationships among content. Look for content that is ROT (redundant, outdated or trivial). Track your findings and your progress.

This exercise will help you empathize with and appreciate your users’ frustrations. It will also help you begin to brainstorm a new, more efficient model for your web site.



Focus on User Research and Usability TestingPractice: Conduct research to better understand your users.

Value: This research provides concrete evidence for how your users find and consume information on your site.

Where to start: Get started with research sessions and employ practices such as focus groups, individual interviews, usability tests and surveys to help you understand how audiences are using your site.

Effective user research activities:

Card sorting

Paper prototyping

Group brainstorming

Usability testing



Know Your Content ContributorsPractice: Talk with various university stakeholder groups to better understand where they’re coming from.

Value: You will begin to engage your business stakeholders as partners in your cause.

Where to start: Hold cross-departmental collaboration sessions to understand your stakeholders’ requirements, concerns and thoughts. Identify and track key themes and points of consensus.

Goals for stakeholder interactions:

Opening communication channels with your colleagues

Tracking how stakeholder requirements change over time

Enabling stakeholders to take ownership over improving the Web

Beginning to break organizational silos for “the greater good”



Know Your Technical InfrastructurePractice: Evaluate your technical infrastructure to identify any requirements, considerations or important challenges to implementing an enterprise-wide architecture.

Value: This will help you understand the universe of processes and applications that exist across your Web enterprise, and the users and business stakeholders related to each.

Where to start: Work with your Web technology group or groups to understand the Web lifecycle. Analyze how the Web site directlyand indirectly serves customers and prospects along their lifecycles.

Questions to ask:

How many Web accounts exist and how are they used?

What is the content management infrastructure?

What are the key points of integration (application, business, etc.)?



Content

Now that you’ve done all this work, put it to work for you. Use your findings to create a roadmap for a unified Web enterprise you and your University can be proud of.



Questions?

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Building a Better Web Enterprise for Colleges and Universities

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