Case Study

Drawing more than 4 million visits per year, the University of California website serves as the university's flagship digital presence. Jen Mediano spearheaded the development of an updated content strategy and a streamlined navigation structure, creating a more accessible yet comprehensive platform that showcases the world’s leading public university system.

About the Project

  • The Problem

    •No overarching brand message 

    •Messaging: what’s commerce?

    •Copy addressed the user inconsistently 

    •Word documents, duplicative and outdated content

    •Carousel autoplaying staff-authored blog posts

    •Navigation addressed several different audiences without differentiating between them

    •Two layers of top-level navigation, flyover navigation, plus on-page navigation

    •Accessibility issues: links opened new windows

    •Staff composing bespoke phone scripts and emails to compensate for information missing from the site

    •Students forced to weed through irrelevant content

    •Prospective students doubting McIntire’s IT expertise

    •Corporate sponsors dependent on phone and email to access information

    •Alumni events difficult to find

    •CMS forced content creators to update content by hand

  • The Solution

    •MyMcIntire, a custom portal that accommodates all of the resources and information McIntire students need to navigate the student experience. 

    •A headless CMS that gave writers more control over their content

    •A section for companies and recruiters

    •A definition of commerce that’s front and center

    •Microsites for alumni, giving, events, and news

    •The Experience centering on the student experience at McIntire

    •A stripped-down navigation for the main site consisting of three areas prospective students look for (Programs, Faculty & Research, The Experience)

    •Accepted and enrolled students have a dedicated portal

    •Recruiters and student life can refer prospects and students to the website rather than compose bespoke emails

    •McIntire defines what they do and who they are clearly on the homepage

    •Content creators can now "write once, publish anywhere," thus cutting down the time and effort needed to update, edit, delete, move, and otherwise repurpose content on different areas of the site.

  • The Lessons

    •This project went smoothly because of the team composition and trust

    •To occasionally diverge from standard UX practices when it makes sense for the client, the content, and the audiences

    •Clients need to account for the entire lifecycle of content, including its deletion

    •To convince client of the amount of resources needed to get to launch, especially entering content into CMS post launch editing and general QA

Download Full Case Study