Business School Website Refresh

Background

As a top 20 U.S. business school, my client receives significant web traffic from prospective students globally. The goal was to ensure the site is relevant, informative, and engaging to best serve these diverse audiences. Following a major website redesign and CMS migration in 2018-19, the client required a design refresh to align with their evolving brand identity and functional upgrades to enhance the user experience.

My Role and Objectives

I served as the Senior UX Strategist, planning and executing research across two phases:

  1. Discovery: My objective was to understand site users and their goals, identify current site strengths and areas for improvement, and prioritize potential improvements based on anticipated impact.

  2. Validation: Following ideation and prioritization, I planned testing of proposed design solutions to evaluate their alignment with user needs and mental models and to identify any usability issues.

Discovery Phase

Research Questions

The initial research focused on answering the following:

  • Who are the site audiences and what are their primary goals?

  • Who are the site stakeholders and what are their organizational goals?

  • How are visitors currently using the site, and what are their pain points versus what is working well?

  • What are the needs of the team managing the site content?

  • Given the available time and resources, what should the team focus its efforts on?

Methodologies

Stakeholder Interviews and Focus Groups

I interviewed and conducted a series of focus groups with stakeholders from various departments. For each session, I gathered information on:

  • Audiences served by their department

  • Key tasks those audiences need to complete on their portion of the site

  • Overall business goals for their department

  • User feedback they had collected (as we did not have direct user access initially)

Stakeholders also identified 1-2 key pages, added screenshots to a collaborative Miro board, and then participated in an exercise to evaluate how the CMS design elements supported - or failed to support - user and internal stakeholder goals.

  • Outcome: I conducted qualitative analysis to find response patterns, identifying areas for prioritization within the limited scope and documenting findings in a client report

Competitive Analysis

The UX designer and I conducted a collaborative session with the client to analyze other top business school websites identified by both parties. We reviewed each example, interviewing the client about their preferences and noting key areas based on discovery research:

  • Navigation patterns

  • Key user flows (e.g., applying for admission)

  • Menu structure

  • Outcome: This workshop provided direction for the UX strategy and design, leading to a better understanding of client priorities and how the website could better support organizational and user goals.

Heuristic Design Review

The UX designer and I independently conducted heuristic evaluations of the site based on the Nielsen Norman Group’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design and then compared our findings.

  • Outcome: We synthesized our findings and recommendations into a report, which was used alongside other discovery research for prioritization of our project scope.

Google Analytics Review

Given the client’s existing site and analytics data, I reviewed several years of data across different time periods (academic year, calendar year, semester) to understand user behavior and compare it against stakeholder feedback. I focused on metrics such as:

  • Most visited pages

  • Time on page

  • User flows/paths for key pages/tasks

  • Devices used to access the site

  • Clicks on navigation items

  • Number of pages per visit

  • User geographic location

  • Outcome: I presented this quantitative data during a prioritization workshop, comparing it to qualitative findings to identify areas where data supported or challenged stakeholder assumptions. This led to a consensus on which portions of the site to address first.

Prioritization and Validation

After the discovery research, my team led a prioritization workshop with client contacts to define the work for future sprints. Based on the synthesis of user feedback, analytics data, stakeholder goals, competitive analysis, and the heuristic evaluation, we advised the client to focus on key areas, including implementing a mega-menu to improve overall site navigation and task completion (e.g., applying to the business school).

Usability Testing

To test the proposed mega-menu, I conducted usability testing on a Figma prototype, which was informed by the discovery research.

Research questions included:

  • Are prospective students able to find essential information (program pages, application process, admissions, cost, student profile, employment outcomes) to inform their decision to consider the business school's graduate programs?

  • How well does the mega-menu and proposed information architecture align with user expectations?

  • What usability issues exist with the proposed mega-menu design, and how can the design better support this key user journey?

Additional study details:

  • 5 moderated user testing sessions were conducted online via Google Meet with participants representing the primary audiences (current and prospective graduate students):

    • 3 current MBA students

    • 1 current BBA student

    • 1 staff member

  • Sessions lasted approximately 30 minutes.

  • Participants were asked to complete tasks using the proposed mega-menu and then asked to perform two comparison tasks on the live site.

  • Outcome: Testing confirmed the mega-menu was a viable solution that met the needs and supported the goals of the primary site audiences. We also collected specific design feedback to further improve the usability of the proposed design.

Overall Project Outcome

Following usability and performance testing, the changes to the site went live a few months later.

  • New and improved navigation elements successfully highlighted the information most critical for the prospective student user journey, including highlighting third-level menu items and key improvements to the positioning and style of the "Apply now" pathway.

  • Our recommendations to the client's internal team led to a 15% improvement in load times across the site.

  • The implemented changes resulted in test-verified improvements to search results.