Background
Butler University’s had hit a wall with their website — it was in an outdated Drupal CMS, lacked functionality, was difficult to update, and wasn’t effectively reaching its intended audience. SimpsonScarborough was contracted to do a complete redesign of the website and migrate it to WordPress. This post will outline the first phase for the project: Discovery & Strategy.
The Process
The website redesign process began with a discovery session. As the Account Executive on this project, I worked with the client to plan a campus visit in order to meet with various stakeholder groups to get a better understanding of their needs and frustrations with the current website. In preparation for the campus visit, I worked with the Director of Web Development and a web strategist to come up with questions that would help guide the groups through the discovery process.
Questions included:
- “What are the key audiences you are trying to communicate with?”
- “What is currently working well? What isn’t?”
- “What is your process in order to get new content posted on the website?”
Once Discovery was complete, the team and I regrouped to begin to build the key deliverable for this phase: a document outlining the discovery findings and strategic recommendations such as CMS, SEO, and website architecture. My analysis of the discovery findings included identifying chief complaints and building an audience profile. The website needed to effectively communicate with many groups: current students, prospective students, parents and families of students, alumni, faculty and staff, businesses and corporations, and the surrounding city of Indianapolis.
Nicole Orosa 