[Case Study]
Design for
Good, Justice
& the Future
[The Story]
Through rigorous commitments to creativity, diversity, and advancing technologies,
the University of Minnesota’s College of Design uses innovation and education to address emerging issues, identify problems, frame creative approaches, and generate solutions — all while adhering to socially responsible, sustainable principles and inclusive, collaborative design processes.
THE
NEED
The College of Design needed an experienced web agency to develop, design, implement, and provide technical services to improve their web presence. They wanted a vendor that had in-depth knowledge in website planning, research, architecture, design, and implementation. This included specialists for usability, accessibility, graphics, navigation, analytics, content strategy, and search engine optimization. The primary audiences for this site were prospective students. Current students were a secondary audience along with college employees, alumni, benefactors, community partners, employers, and the media.
THE
SOLUTION
To effectively communicate with their key audiences, the redesigned website had to have an effective information architecture, user-friendly interface, relevant content, and of course reflect a custom design. The website complied with existing federal and Minnesota State website accessibility laws/rules/guidelines.
[The Highlights]
Responsive Design.
The redesign required an updated, modern look and feel that was responsive to mobile use. The site was designed for all major mobile browsers and devices (iOS and Android). It was compatible with all major desktop/laptop browsers.
[The Highlights]
Content Audit.
We significantly reduce website pages from thousands to several hundred pages. We developed a content strategy and process for ongoing content management, with content guidance based on best practices. We assisted their marketing team in developing a plan to migrate content from the old site to the redesigned site.
[The Highlights]
User Experience Research.
We planned and implemented user research to inform main navigation information architecture. We conducted open and closed card sorting exercises to redefine and refine main navigation. We conducted one-on-one interviews to validate the user experience of proposed navigation changes with live users.
[The Highlights]
API Integration.
We integrated complex, custom API modules that were pulling date from specific UMN feeds across the University.
SERVICES
PROVIDED
OPEN/CLOSED CARD SORT
STRATEGY CONSULTING
USER EXPERIENCE RESEARCH
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
CONTENT AUDIT
WIREFRAME & PROTOTYPE
RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN
WEB DEVELOPMENT
CONTENT MIGRATION
TESTING & QA
ANALYTICS & OPTIMIZATION
WEBSITE SUPPORT
ACCESSIBILITY COMPLIANCE
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
TECHNOLOGIES
USED
DRUPAL CMS
BOOTSTRAP
HTML/CSS/JS
SOLR SEARCH
ACQUIA ENTERPRISE
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