RESEARCH & DISCOVERY
SURVEYS & FOCUS GROUPS
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
CONTENT STRATEGY AND DEVELOPMENT
CONCEPT AND DESIGN
BRAND PLATFORM
We were selected by Trinity University to help them launch a new website in 5 months, in time for the critical fall application season. We discussed several scenarios and arrived at a plan to focus first on the home page and those landing pages that prospective students needed to see to help them determine if Trinity was a good fit, and go all out to make sure that core experience was ready on August 1.
"Our website is absolutely critical to enrollment efforts - it needs to help us reposition our message towards quality and great value.
CHRIS ELLERTSON, FORMER ASSOCIATE VP/ENROLLMENT, TRINITY UNIVERSITY
Defining what makes Trinity special
Before we could begin work on the website redesign, we had to resolve a more fundamental question: what will the website say about Trinity that separates it from the pack of small, liberal arts universities? Our early research and conversations with the Trinity community revealed a set of widely-held beliefs:
With low enrollment but enormous resources and degree offerings for its size, Trinity is feels like a big small university.
While Trinity was seen as a good value, consistently wining the top spot in U.S. News Best in the West ranking gave them the opportunity to pivot to quality.
Many students come to Trinity to explore many majors before declaring, which is encouraged by the university. Double majors are common and encouraged.
We built a new brand platform from these discoveries, and then designed the new home page to communicate the brand pillars through the voices of the Trinity community.
“I want the experience of the website itself to be a message – your first reaction is “that is interesting – it’s different than other university websites.”
DR. CHARLES WHITE, VP/MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS, TRINITY UNIVERSITY
Communication strategy
Once the ideation phase began in earnest, we had a small epiphany: everyone agrees the primary audience of the home page is prospective students, so why not turn the entire page over to their needs? Why not provide all of the information that prospective students have told us repeatedly they look for when visiting a university website? We set out to design the home page with these objectives:
Transition the home page from a warehouse of university of information to an engaging experience that focuses exclusively on prospective students, and answers most of their questions in one place.
Communicate what makes Trinity special through the voices of students, faculty, and alumni.
Hero images and stories will always highlight a brand pillar, rather than use this valuable real estate for news and events.
Each section will focus on a specific area of the university experience, and will surface the information prospective students seek.
The result is a home page and set of landing pages that provide a seamless and engaging experience for prospective students.