Top 5 Wishes from Onsite Discovery
We’re deep into the discovery phase of the website redevelopment project. mStoner is gaining an understanding our institution and web landscape by:
- Studying relevant materials such as strategic documents and recruitment materials
- Diving into our Google Analytics and site structure
- Checking out competitor sites
Most importantly, mStoner is listening. mStoner visited campus on February 27–28, 2017 and met with 90 UND stakeholders including senior leadership, faculty, staff, and current students.
Participants received three wishes they would like granted for the new website (mobile-friendly is a given). Wishes varied but some common themes emerged.
1. Fix Internal Search
We knew internal search was a pain point but didn’t realize it was excruciating. Users rely on Google because the internal search isn’t producing relevant results.
2. Improve Navigation
Our navigation is too complicated. We have horizontal navigation in the top black banner, another layer of horizontal navigation in the orange bar and vertical navigation on the left side of most pages. We also organize our site navigation the way UND is structured, making it especially challenging to new visitors. On the bright side, people seemed to like the quick links on the MyUND page.
3. Make Programs Easier to Find
Try being a prospective student exploring programs of interest on our site. Good luck! Let’s say you are interested in a B.A. in Communication. You could potentially find information on four different pages:
4. Showcase Our Pride
‘UNDers’ are proud people. We want to tell and hear our stories. The new website needs to make it easy to share our pride.
5. Promote Events
There’s a lot going on at UND but no central place to see what’s happening. Our current calendar is too old school to be useful. People want an easy and modern way to create, share and browse events.
What’s Next
mStoner will consolidate all its learned and develop a road map for the duration of the project. Additionally, mStoner will continue to follow the UND brand project in order to carry brand elements into the creative phase of the website redevelopment project.