When design and functionality are not enough

When
design
&
functionality
are
not
enough

Presented
by:

Teodora
Dotzeva,
Web
Manager,
Vancouver
Community
College

Presented
at:

#PSEWEB
2014
-‐
Canada's
University
and
College
Digital
Marketing

Conference

PRESENTATION
NOTES:

1. FACTS:

! 3
continents
(Europe,
Australia
and
North
America)

! >
9,000
-‐
website
with
over
9,000
pages
and
content
items

! 26%
-‐
visits
to
the
home
page
went
up
by
$26%
year
over
year

! 4
in-‐house
developers

! 7
weeks
to
implement

2. OBJECTIVES:

! Rebrand
–
new
logo
and
new
marketing
campaign

! Single
Content
Management
System
(CMS)
to
support
VCC.ca,
department

websites
and
my.VCC.ca
(college
Intranet).
Have
the
ability
to
re-‐use
content

across
different
channels
(VCC.ca
and
my.VCC.ca).
Easy
to
use
system
that

integrates
with
Active
Directory
and
college
databases.

! Increase
enrolment
by
simplifying
information,
improving
the
presentation
of

information
and
improving
navigation
to
reduce
number
of
clicks.
Responsive

website
to
support
clean
delivery
of
information
on
different
platforms
with

improved
accessibility.
Increase
enrolment
by
bringing
more
people
to
the

door.

3. THE
PROCESS
&
TIMELINE:

Accelerated
timeline
because
of
staffing/leadership
changes.
Project
had
a

delayed
start,
but
the
deadline
didn’t
move
because
there
was
an
expectation.

! Procurement
of
CMS
in
Fall
2012
–
lengthy
process.
We
had
to
outline
CMS

requirements
needed
to
support
multiple
channels
(external
college
website,

college
Intranet
and
department
website/extranet).
We
had
consultation

with
potential
users
to
ensure
they
can
easily
use
the
CMS.

! Design
–
new
VCC
logo
finalized
in
Jan.
2013
and
brand
colours
finalized
in

Feb.
–
website
design
begins
last
week
of
Jan.

! Consultation
in
Feb.
with
faculty,
staff,
Registrar’s
Office,
leadership,

students
and
prospective
students.

! VCC.ca
discovery
and
functional
specifications
in
March

! (homepage,
news,
events,
program
pages,
inside
static
pages)
–
focused
on

desktop
version
but
also
needed
to
produce
tablet
and
mobile
versions
in
a

few
days.

! Design
cut-‐ups
and
CSS
in
April
(done
in
Europe
by
CMS
provider)

! 4-‐day
in-‐house
training
in
May.
The
training
included
3
days
of
developer

training,
½
day
of
contributor
training
and
½
day
of
‘train
the
trainer’

training.
This
provided
us
with
the
ability
to
develop
content
templates,
set

up
workflows,
navigate
through
the
content
and
numerous
other
necessary

CMS
skills.
Best
of
all,
some
of
our
contributors
attended
the
contributor

training
and
within
a
couple
of
weeks
they
were
able
to
begin
adding

content.

! Implementation
–
(in
7
weeks
we
launched
a
responsive
website
with
over

9,000
pages).
Over
the
years
we
had
developed
several
online
applications
to

manage
and
maintain
content.
This
meant
that
with
the
new
CMS
we
had
to

migrate
content,
create
workflows
and
sync
CMS
fields
with
several
database

tables.

! The
VCC
web
team
did
website
testing
in
July.
We
also
involved
program

advisors
and
the
Registrar’s
Office
because
they
were
most
familiar
with
the

old
website
and
could
identify
missing
information.
These
were
also
the

people
who
would
deal
with
prospective
students
the
most
and
therefore

need
to
know
how
to
navigate
the
website
in
order
to
find
or
help
others
find

the
information
they
need.

! Go
live
-‐
July
18,
2013.

4. WHAT
CMS
&
WHY?
–
TerminalFour’s
Site
Manager

(http://www.terminalfour.com)

! Usability,
all
users
who
were
part
of
the
consultation
process
during

procurement
really
liked
the
product.
After
1
year
of
use
we
are
still
happy

with
our
choice.
It
produces
clean
code
that
integrates
with
a
style
sheet

specific
to
our
website.

! Great
training.

! Easy
to
learn
and
use
–
important
for
contributors
and
for
those
who
manage

the
CMS.

! Reliable
team
and
support.
Project
management
was
done
from
Australia,

design
cut-‐ups
and
CSS
files
were
developed
in
Europe,
functional

specifications
were
created
in
North
America.
All
deliverables
were
given
to

us
on
time.

! Good
integration
with
Active
Directory
and
Oracle
databases
We
also
query

Banner
database
to
get
time,
location
and
price
about
course
sections.

! Server
independence
and
site
reliability.
The
CMS
architecture
allows

separating
the
CMS
and
the
production
server
so
that
the
live
site
will
only

have
HTML
documents.
This
means
that
pages
are
generated
by
the
CMS
by

connecting
to
the
databases
but
once
the
site
is
live
we
are
completely

independent
of
any
database
outages.
The
live
server
can
be
as
simple
as
an

ISS
server.
CMS
administrators
can
push
content
out
as
often
as
they
want.

We
scheduled
regular
automatic
content
publishing
and
transfer
of
the

website
so
that
our
moderators
and
contributors
can
be
self-‐sufficient
and

independent
of
the
CMS
administrators.

! We
have
the
ability
to
schedule
reports
to
check
accessibility
and
broken

links.
Site
Manager
takes
care
of
broken
links.

5. THE
WEBSITE:

Before
-‐
The
website
was
very
text
heavy
and
multiple
clicks
were
required
to

get
to
important
information.
We
had
to
maintain
a
separate
mobile
website
so

there
was
a
duplication
of
effort.

After
–
We
implemented
mega
navigation
menus
that
make
searching
for

content
simpler
and
faster.
We
have
a
better
search
(Google
and

program/course
specific
search).
The
design
is
colourful
with
big
icons.
Icons
are

used
consistently
across
all
pages
on
the
website.
We
deployed
a
responsive

website
so
we
would
no
longer
have
maintain
a
mobile
site
in
addition
to
the

main
site.
Based
on
Google
and
CrazyEgg
analytics
as
well
as
user
feedback
we

identified
important
information
and
made
it
more
prominent.
For
example,
on

program
pages
we
have
start,
length,
credential,
campus
and
part
or
full-‐time

delivery
more
prominent
as
this
is
what
our
users
need
to
make
a
decision.
We

also
broke-‐down
the
page
into
smaller
components
so
that
users
can
either
view

the
full
page
or
just
view
specific
sections
they
are
interested
in.

6. BOTTOM
LINE:

! Process
to
develop
the
website
involved
a
lot
of
consultation
with

faculty,
students,
admissions,
etc.
Needed
to
consider
people
with

visual
impairment
as
well
as
responsive
design.
VCC
employees
are

happy
with
the
website
because
they
were
involved
in
the

development
process
and
have
a
vested
interest
in
it.

! The
new
website
was
part
of
a
comprehensive
marketing
plan:
we

redesigned
our
advertising
to
make
the
URL
a
dominant
graphical

feature;
we
placed
ads
on
public
transit,
movie
theatres,
online,
print,

etc.;
the
ads
directed
people
to
a
beautiful,
vibrant
website;
and
we

changed
the
focus
of
our
web
site
so
that
it
became
the
College’s

primary
marketing
tool.
(See
examples
of
VCC.ca
campaign)

! The
result:
Visits
to
the
home
page
went
up
by
$26%
year
over
year;

and
the
College
had
a
significant
increase
in
inquiries
through
the

web
from
potential
students.
We
won
prestigious
awards.

7. PLATINUM
&
GOLD:

MarCom
is
an
international
creative
competition
that
recognizes
outstanding

achievement
by
marketing
and
communications
professionals.

For
2013,
over
6,500
entries
were
submitted
from
across
the
US,
Canada
and

several
other
countries.
In
the
competition
were
everything
from
individual

communicators
to
media
conglomerates
to
Fortune
500
companies.

PLATINUM
for
the:

Go
Ahead.
Get
Skilled.

Ad
campaign

GOLD

The
Gold
award
is
presented
to
those
entries
judged
to
exceed
the
high

standards
of
the
industry
norm.

VCC
won
gold
for:

VCC.ca
website
redesign

Go
ahead.
Get
skilled.
(transit
campaign)

But
no
improvement
in
enrolment.

8. WHAT
WE
LEARNED:

A
new
website
is
not
the
answer
to
everything.

We
saw
an
increase
in
inquiries
but
no
increase
in
enrolment.

So
what
happened?
The
website
exposed
our
resource
limitations
and
process

inefficiencies.
As
a
result,
we
have
increased
collaboration
with
other

departments
within
the
college
to
strengthen
our
recruitment
process
and

improve
customer
service.

We
are
also
constantly
improving
internal
processes
and
website
content
to

simplify
program
information
and
enhance
prospects’
ability
for
self-‐service.

With
the
right
team,
anything
is
possible
despite
very
ambitious
deadlines.
With

4
in-‐house
web
developers,
we
needed
all
the
help
we
could
get.
We
trained
our

marketing
team
so
within
a
few
hours
we
had
all
hands
on
deck.
It
was
definitely

a
team
effort
and
TerminalFour
was
crucial
in
the
success
of
the
project.
They

were
involved
in
many
stages
and
always
delivered
on
time.

Remember
to
laugh
and
work
with
others
to
solve
problems.
We
worked
many

long
hours
during
the
last
month
before
the
launch,
but
the
best
thing
about
it

all
is
that
we
came
out
a
stronger
team
at
the
end
and
we
can
still
laugh

together.

9. WHAT
IS
NEXT:

! Complete
all
marketing
pages
and
strengthen
marketing
campaign.

! Finish
the
migration
of
department
websites
to
use
new
CMS
and

new
brand.

! In
September
2014
we
will
begin
the
implementation
of
my.VCC.ca

(VCC’s
Intranet
for
students,
alumni
and
employees)

Was
the
project
a
success
–
well,
I
would
like
to
let
you
be
the
judge
of
that.

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