Overview
I had the privilege to lead the user experience and strategy for the redesigned Moore College of Art website. Having grown up outside of Philadelphia as an art student and attending art school in the city, it was an honor to work with the nation’s first all women’s art school and one of the most well respected colleges in the country. Overall, the website needed to represent the authentic Moore and“look like an art school,” as many stakeholders put it simply.
“Look like an art school”
Just about everybody said it. A dramatic departure from the previous design – which, I kid you not, featured a lacey, floral pattern background (you know, what women like) – the website now represents the cutting edge and vibrant college that it is. Many of the design elements were inspired by our initial tour of the buildings—the lightness from the windows, (some of which are diamond-shaped), the splashes of color throughout the different floors of the building, and most notably—the very active pinboard that provided a glimpse into campus life and culture at Moore.
Feature less polished, less posed images in an effort show the true and wonderful “grit” of art school. Students, especially art school students, want to see people in the shop welding, on the floor with charcoal smeared on their clothes, something unusual but interesting running through the bandsaw—not girls sitting indian style in the grass under a tree laughing and eating salad.
Show you’re alive
Many college and university websites hyper-focus on the prospective student that the website becomes a once-browsed, flat and frozen digital brochure. By making it a resource for students, staff and faculty, as well– prospective students (and their parents) want to see what’s actually happening on campus, as well as the resources and support they would have when they get there. We created opportunities for dynamic, rotating content and sections designated for current audiences.
Simplify content
This is an example of one of my greatest challenges and greatest successes professionally—a true testament to a collaborative and inclusive approach to strategy. At any large college or university – or company, for that matter – where you are to address the needs of multiple stakeholders equally – and who all lead other departments, programs, offices and so forth – the approach to the architecture and content on the website can be a gruelling feat.
When we started this project, the homepage of the website had over top-level thirty navigation items with no organization or hierarchy—the product of a democratic (or, just defeated) spirit and the tension that internal politics creates. We reminded their team that they are a college that needs students to apply and, to get students to apply, the students need to have an experience that helps them see themselves there—not spending time trying to figure out the navigation so they can how to find the information on majors that are offered.
During the course of a workshop early on – which included the Moore’s president, faculty, the marketing & communications team, exhibition’s team and other staff members – we challenged groups made up individuals that represent different departments or programs in the college to use their stack of thirty cards representing each navigation area to boil that number down to, at the most, six navigation items—whether through elimination or creating bigger buckets.
This exercise was a success in that it created a level of critical thinking about the content that hadn’t previously guided decision-making, it generated a level of empathy for our team in recognition of the hard task ahead and most importantly, empathy for one another and a glimpse into the needs and desires of other departments, offices, programs, and so on. This ultimately paid off down the road as there was more buy-in internally from the team during content entry of the website, as the different parties felt heard and included in the process.