Tech-Forward Redesign of Career Services
Streamlining navigation and elevating user engagement in a complex digital landscape.
Desktop/Mobile
The higher education website encompasses a diverse range of content focusing on career-related topics and job search resources. Serving as a continuous 24/7 career services tool, users can seamlessly engage with it at their convenience from any location.
The Problem
Navigating through an overwhelming volume of text content spread across 132 web pages, compounded by redundant information and confusing navigation, content locations, and parent/child menu relationships, created a stressful and challenging experience for users seeking engagement.
The Solution
Narrow down the range of topics covered on the website. Group related or thematically similar content pieces together. Identify and eliminate redundant web pages, moving forward with a streamlined approach focused on a single, authoritative source of information.
Role
Sole Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer
Project Type
Migration
Website Construction
Rebranding
How might we refine website navigation and content organization to enable users, including students, parents, and employers, to access career services more efficiently, thereby fostering increased engagement and satisfaction?
In this case study, I will guide you through the process of redesigning an entire website. Our objective was to create clear pathways ("red routes") leading students and employers to their end goals, all while ensuring satisfaction among the board of trustees and administrative team.
Our approach centered on pinpointing existing challenges and understanding the specific needs of students and employers for tasks such as registering for career events, conducting job searches, and building career documents.
Evaluation and Research
We needed to discover what was causing the bounce rate of the feature to be so high and what was missing in the workflow that prevented teachers from selecting materials and moving to the lesson building process.
Site Audit of the Navigation and Workflow of the Current State
Utilizing Drupal's backend taxonomy, I conducted a comprehensive assessment of all 132 webpages employing Nielsen Norman techniques and adhering to content hierarchy best practices. The site mapping and audit exercise revealed several significant issues requiring immediate attention to rebuild trust between users and the website.
The career website suffered from inconsistency in structure and layout, making navigation challenging. The presence of redundant pages created a lack of a centralized source of truth, leaving room for misinformation to persist if overlooked. Furthermore, the website served as an archive, driven by the fear of losing templates and crucial information. The abundance of web pages compelled users to navigate through as many as six or more clicks to access the desired content.
Discovery
The Student navigation tab contained a total of 70 web pages, with a notable portion being redundant or serving as introductory or storytelling pages leading to child pages.
Takeaway 1
The content for career events was distributed across three distinct web pages, each intended to cater to students, employers, and staff/faculty. However, the actual wording did not align with this intention.
Takeaway 2
The technology tool Wildcat Connections was given a parent tab in the navbar, while other widely accessed and utilized technologies like Handshake, InterviewStream, VMock, and Real World Ready lacked parent tabs, resulting in an inconsistent layout.
Takeaway 3
Webpages were interconnected, leading to subpages that delved into specific aspects related to the parent topic. For instance, the Resumes webpage covered various topics but branched out into several subpages, each providing a more in-depth exploration of specific aspects. An illustration of this interconnectedness was the Transferable Skills, initially featured on the Resume page, which then directed users to a dedicated page presenting a table of related skills.
Takeaway 4
The child menu options in the dropdown navigation were linked to external websites, leading to a significant bounce rate and causing confusion among users about their location (starting on unh.edu/career but ending up on the Alumni of UNH website).
Takeaway 5
Research with Subject Matter Experts
Interviews and content reviews were carried out with both the Employer Advisory Board (comprising representatives from five major companies who frequently collaborate with the university) and the Student Advisory Board (inclusive of students representing diverse demographics, including the student body president, an athletics scholar, an arts merit student, and others). This approach ensured varied perspectives on the layout and essential pathways ("red routes") tailored to each user audience.
During interviews with students, it was revealed that their parents tended to engage with messaging and any communication the students received, including tasks like class registration, campus activities, and policy updates. This sheds light on the low traffic observed in the Parents section of the website, which essentially duplicated content from the Student section but was reworded for a parent-focused audience. Parents expressed a desire to directly access information that the Career team communicated to their child.
On the employer front, there was a clear emphasis on the need for direct and streamlined access to initiate the recruiting process. Employers sought clear calls-to-action, given their tight schedules, and preferred avoiding unnecessary information parsing to reduce stress. They highlighted the importance of a quick and straightforward task flow, associating it with confidence in the university's quality and integrity.
Restructured Build
A site map was configured to incorporate the identified necessary changes, aimed at streamlining navigation, establishing essential pathways ("red routes"), enhancing SEO, and refining site governance.
Current State: 66 Web Pages
The Parents menu was entirely removed based on feedback gathered from the UNH Parents Facebook Group survey. Parents expressed a preference for direct access to the specific information their students were receiving, as opposed to a curated, general version of career events, support, and to-dos.
Update 1
The Wildcat Connections tab in the navbar underwent relocation and is now nested under the new menu option, Career Technology. The Career Technology menu consolidates all technology platforms as child menu options, offering users a convenient one-stop-shop for 24/7 support from the career team.
Update 2
A new parent tab has been introduced in the navbar, dedicated to consolidating all career events in one accessible location. In the previous state, each audience had a separate career event webpage, leading to inconsistencies across multiple pages. Recognizing that the language on each page wasn't diverse enough to justify the existence of three distinct web pages for each career event, a decision was made to streamline the information. This resulted in the consolidation of all events into a single web page, providing a unified source of truth. This centralized page includes specific sections guiding students, employers, and staff/faculty on what to do and how to participate in each event.
Update 3
Results
Engagement metrics post-page culling and “red route” set up.
30%
Decrease in the number of pages viewed per user session
3%
Increase in the volume of new organic users
26%
Decrease in user sessions associated with shorter search times for content and better access to career technology
Conclusion
The revised navigation of the career website has significantly improved users' ability to locate information and resources efficiently and effortlessly. By grouping related content under cohesive menu offerings and establishing parent tabs for content that stakeholders and users primarily seek, students and employers are now directed seamlessly to platforms supporting events, offering resume reviews, facilitating 1:1 counseling appointments, and more.