Elizabethtown College’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) launched its new website this June. After undergoing a complete graphic redesign, content rework and organizational restructuring, the site is now tailored for a more user-friendly experience.
Over ten months, the College’s Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) and Information and Technology Services (ITS) developed the site entirely in-house. “We’re always looking for interesting projects to do and wanted to give the School a good website for the budget that they had,” said Danilo Yabut, web and new media strategy director.
One of the biggest improvements to the site is its responsive design—the ability to display and function on mobile devices, tablets and laptops. Additionally, content was streamlined and the website’s page count went from 250 pages to 129.
Work for the project began in August 2012, when SCPS approached the OMC about developing a new website that would fulfill their needs. SCPS’s website had not seen an update since 2006. “At that time [in 2006], it adequately fulfilled our needs. But over the years, as the world of website design advanced, our site started to look outdated,” said Barbara Randazzo, SCPS assistant dean of enrollment.
After a brand and marketing review, OMC conducted analytics research to determine the users’ habits as well as the effectiveness of the site’s architecture and content during the fall 2012 semester. Donna Talarico-Beerman, director of integrated communications, worked closely with the project and said the goals of the new site were, “A more compelling look and feel, better navigational structure, less content but more clarity in messaging—overall, an improved user experience.” Talarcio-Beerman also mentioned an overarching goal to align SCPS with the College’s overall branding.
Later, in December 2012 and January 2013, Yabut made this goal a reality when he graphically redesigned the site. “We wanted the site to be part of the Etown family, so we utilized the same photography style, typography and blues and grays seen on the College’s [undergraduate] website,” said Yabut.
Throughout the spring 2013 semester, ITS and OMC developed coding for the site. While this was occurring, Talarico-Beerman rewrote the web content so that it would have a more personable tone. “My goal with content is to make it informative and actionable, while also conversational — we’re talking to people through the web,” said Talarico-Beerman.
Since its launch in June, the new website has received positive feedback. Randazzo said, “We have had tremendous traffic on the site since it launched in June and measurements such as ‘time on site’ and ‘number of page views’ all show a strong engagement with the site’s content.” Check out the new website at etowndegrees.com.
