ABOUT

With extensive experience in the education sector, we were of course delighted when the University of Southampton selected us for the redesign of their website back in 2014. Listed in the top 1% of universities throughout the world, the University of Southampton is a member of the lint Russell Group with heritage dating back to 1862. Despite being at the cutting edge of innovation, the current website was failing to illustrate the success of the university internationally.

The website utilised one core template with individual microsite for each sector however it was not responsive nor did it provide a user friendly experience. This was having a detrimental impact on the brand image of the university not to mention the fact they were missing conversions therefore a new solution was imperative.

Looking to appeal to a number of audience groups worldwide, our team spent a great deal of time on site with the University’s stakeholders to fully understand their core users as well as the main project objectives. Additionally, we conducted deep analysis on key user personas upon which user scenarios and stores can be built. Not only are these user stories a basis for our wire framing (next stage in our process), they are a key part of the usability process allowing us to ensure the solution we deliver is exactly what the user wants and that the experience is all they need.

Working closely with the University’s digital team, we delved into a number of user journeys and focused on building out a series of wireframes. In total, we designed 82 wireframes with over 45 of these for key landing pages.

After designing a number of concepts, the university selected the wild card design and they were handed over to our front-end development team who translated them into fully responsive, fluid templates.

The website launched in November 2015 and since then it’s received very impressive feedback from both users and internal stakeholders. Engagement metrics are rising and the team have far greater capacity and control over their landing pages. Following this project, the University of Southampton selected us to develop an innovative media platform to serve it’s alumni and staff which we’ll announce more about soon.