Virginia Tech
// Launch SiteVirginia Tech recognized the need to overhaul its web site in 2005. The site had grown to over 2.3 million pages and subsections of the site varied widely in visual style and navigation. A major priority was to develop new information architecture that was validated by audience research. We used the Mental Model approach to identify key user goals and tasks, and developed the new site architecture and user interactions from this research.
We developed a detailed wireframe prototype of the site and conducted usability testing to refine our structure and interactions. Next, we designed the new home page and a complete family of templates. We then worked closely with several departments including Admissions and Financial Aid to redesign their sites.
In addition to the redesign project, we led a team to determine requirements for a content management system capable of supporting the whole University, and assisted with the evaluation of candidate systems.
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How VT Financial Aid rebuilt their site around audience goals
In an earlier post I wrote about how we have adapted the KJ Method for getting consensus on site architecture. We used this approach extensively when we worked with various administrative and academic departments at Virginia Tech, to revamp their parts of the overall vt.edu site. The people in the Financial Aid office did a great job rethinking their site during our session, and I wanted to share their story.
The IT team from Financial Aid had been maintaining the web site up until this…
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"The most important thing is that we both agreed (and that's why we went with NewCity) that we needed to think about the user first in our approach.
I think the most valuable things that we did in those early stages of the project were:
1. The research – seeing what the traffic patterns were on the website and agreeing on what were the most important areas of the website that we wanted to point people to
2. Actually getting out and talking face to face with members of key audiences, and learning from their perspective how they use the Virginia Tech website and university websites in general, and specifically they were looking for.
The great thing about working with NewCity was the constant communication ...every step of the way we were never in the dark about where you guys were in the development of different ideas. We really were on the same page every step of the way."
- Mike Dame, former Director of Web Communications at Virginia Tech
