UBC Admissions

Digital Strategy & Website Redesign

Role: Product Owner, Researcher, UX Design

Client

The University of British Columbia, Recruitment Marketing & Prospective Student Engagement team

The Challenge

Re-design the homepage and programs sections of you.ubc.ca.

This project poses a number of interesting challenges, particularly in redesigning the Programs section. This is a crucial section of the you.ubc.ca website. We explored the challenges this section of the website faced in detail during two workshops with internal stakeholders. The Programs section has to satisfy two unique types of prospective students:

1. those who know exactly which program they want to take, and

2. those with uncertainty about what they want to do.

The section also needs to guide both types of student through their journeys in choosing one of the approximately 300 undergraduate programs available at UBC, across two campuses.

The Approach

1. Planned and conducted audit and usability study on the current site to understand the areas of opportunity and usability issues.

2. Competitive Analysis

3. Interviewed prospective students to understand their thoughts, needs, behaviours, and emotions while going through the process of looking at and choosing a university.

4. Created a Prospective Student Mental Model

5. Created a strategy for the programs section, tours, events, and info sessions, and the homepage

6. Collaborated with the Lead Designer on the creation of new designs

7. Planned and conducted a usability study on the new designs to understand areas for improvement and successes.

8. Assumed role of product owner, managing the development team and backlog through development.

The Results

We conducted a usability study before and after the redesign.

✓ The homepage received high praise for its immersive qualities, compelling images and the feeling of UBC it brings out. Students felt that the homepage showcased the most important information, and were drawn to the fast facts and iconography in particular.

✓ Students were able to easily navigate the programs landing page. The functionality supported a wide variety of mental states, allowing students to search for a specific program, or browse the topics for something new. Students appreciated how the high-level topics helped guide them to a smaller set of programs.

✓ The program page provided a clear and strong foundation of information for students. Programs with more information performed better by keeping the students engaged with the variety of content.

✓ The discovery tool helped students find new programs that they were not aware of.

Participants were asked to describe the website in both usability sessions. Below is before and after the redesign