This is a follow-up interview we did with Elizabeth Houle from University of St. Thomas. Those of you who’ve been with us awhile will remember the original interview we did here. The University of St. Thomas site was selected Noteworthy for September 2007 and most recently was reviewed in The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher-Ed Homepage Design. We’d again like to thank Elizabeth Houle and the University of St. Thomas for providing this great behind-the-scenes view of their redesign project.

Can you give us an high-level view of the project (start, finish dates, goals, vision, etc)?

The project started in January and finished in July 2007.  It was approximately 6 months and the goal was to come up with a system that would maintain St. Thomas as the over arching brand but allow for some sub site elements to market a college or school.  The system has 4 parts: homepage and overview, college and schools, internal and service oriented sites and sites that have their own distinct branding.  The goal was to maintain navigation and provide way finding into deeper sections of the site.

What motivated the start of the project?

It started with a request from one of the colleges to break template.  So, we made a goal to create a homepage and overview pages to allow for college and schools to incorporate their sub-branding while maintaining a connection to the overall UST brand.

What are some specific things about the previous design that you were aiming to correct in this latest design?

• To make the site more dynamic and have spaces for updating and putting up timely content.
• The ability to convey the campuses and the community with multiple images.
• To preserve quicklinks, but name it something more intuitive to what it is which is now tools.
• To continue to provide a like to news, but not display the actual news links on the homepage.
• To create dashboards for the different audiences.
• To provide a space for marketing events on the homepage.

Can you tell us about some aspects of the project you are particularly proud of?

We are proud of…

• The design.
• The way the design and development team worked together.
• The process we used to collect stakeholder input.
• Meeting our timeline.

What are some specific challenges you encountered?

The biggest challenge was the planning and sign off on which things to list out in the navigation.  It was difficult for constituents to grasp that the list was not all inclusive but was to provide a sent for each of the categories.

An ongoing challenge we inherited with this design is finding photos that work in the large photo space.

What is something you learned from the project?

By starting with competitive analysis and stakeholder input we were able to educate the major stakeholders on our direction and vision for the site without have to get a committee together to approve it.  When we launched it the community had already pretty good buy in to what we came up with for direction and design.

Who developed the visual design of the site? (internal team, external agency, etc)

The visual design was done by the internal design team in collaboration with University Relations.

What were some of the sources of inspiration for the visual design?

http://www.apple.com
http://www.bu.edu
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.harvard.edu (previous design)
http://www.nyu.edu
http://www.unl.edu (for the drawer)

What advice would you give looking back at the project?

Don’t be afraid of stakeholder input early and often.

What technologies did you take advantage of? (AJAX, APIs, Flash video, etc)

AJAX

What area headed the project?

Web and Media Services

Was there a committee?

No

What type of user feedback or testing did you use? (usability test, feedback forms, beta site, blog, etc)

Usability testing and focus groups.

Can you describe how you tested or gathered feedback?

We met with various stakeholders around the university and did a three part interview by having them rate 3 very different designs based on preference.

We had them rate the importance of the items listed for navigation and we showed them what we learned on our competitive analysis by walking them through a series of powerpoint slides on the recommendations were planning to implement.

At what stage of the project?

At the very beginning in the analysis phase.

How did it influence the final design?

Positively influenced stakeholders and garnered support for the final design.

What was you reaction when you found out that your site had been selected as a Noteworthy design by the eduStyle community?

We were very pleased.

Could you list the URLs of any articles or news items that present more information about the website.

http://www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/news/200728/Monday/IRT7_9_07.cfm
http://www.stthomas.edu/irt/portfolio/showcase/epsilon.html

Can you also provide a quick profile of yourself and each of the key members of the project.

Elizabeth Houle (me)
Kevin Knutson
Eric Drommerhausen
Reid Miller
Jeremy Ahrens
Matthew Wash
Jared Powell
Eric Larson
And a couple of others that are no longer with the team.

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