From Netflix to Spotify to Amazon, prospective students are accustomed to personalized websites that offer recommendations to help them discover new content or products. When they arrive at most college and university websites the experience is very different. It can feel static and generic by comparison. The culprit? In order to tame the massive amount of content and competing priorities of college websites, a one-size-fits-all home and landing page approach has proliferated. When North Central College decided to redesign its website they wanted to break that one-size-fits-all mold and engage tech-savvy prospects with an experience that felt different from other school sites. With agency partner Spark451, North Central took cues from non-higher ed sites to develop a concept called “stacks.” Stacks are topically bundled content cards. For example, a photo of a faculty member, a video, a student quote, career facts, all related to a particular major. Stacks allow for things like curated categories, and can be embedded into landing pages, news articles and other types of content. They help North Central repurpose and surface content in strategic ways that support admissions efforts. Attendees will learn how North Central took a radical approach to organizing its content to create a user experience that’s different for higher-ed but feels familiar (in a good way) to prospective students.
18. There are many website pages that
are no longer used and are out of
date. The navigation/search menu is
poor and needs to be updated. Many
things could be archived because
they aren't relevant today.
User Survey Response from
Staff/Administrator
What users said about the current site.
The biggest thing is the organization.
Clean things up and it will be more
user-friendly. Websites are sometimes
the first impression.
“
User Survey Response from
a Current Student
19.
20. When you were deciding which college or graduate school to attend, what
information on college websites did you look for the most?
Source: Online User Survey
Academic
Majors/Minors
#1 #2
Financial Aid &
Scholarships
#3
Campus Location
32. A stack is a cohesive collection of content cards. They can be the same type of
content (like news) or related topic, like education or the arts.
Campus News Education
(article, study abroad
story, internship,
event, profile)
Fastest Growing
(programs)
33.
34. Types of Stacks
Group Stack
• Collection of "cards"
connected by similar
topic or type
• "Cards" include title,
fact, quote, image
List Stack
• “Cards” of …
• content types (e.g.
programs, news,
events)
• social feeds
• factoids, promos
• video/image
Profile Stack
• Title, department
• Interests
• Quote
• Photo
Program Stack
• Essentials: title,
degree options,
department
• Career-related: jobs,
job outlook, salary,
internships
