Department of Media Arts & Technology, New Mexico Highlands University
Website design and development overhaul
Andrew Wollner - Project Manager
Jason Valdez- Co-designer
The Media Arts and Technology department website at New Mexico Highlands University was in dire need of revitalizing. With steady increase of student enrollment, the department was overwhelmed with email communication and to a lesser extent, phone calls from students needing assistance. This was as a result of staff not being able to update content on the website, which needed to reflect new initiatives and partnerships such as, the AmeriCorps program and internship opportunities.
Based on limited existing data and guidance from subject matter experts, it was revealed that target users’ would mostly consist of current students, prospective students, department faculty and staff. Armed with this information, I set out to create a proto-persona which helped the project progress.
I created a proto-journey map as a starting point to create some early design hypotheses.
Content to be displayed on the new site was gathered from a questionnaire sent out to subject matter experts and faculty. Feedback gathered was used to further inform the content decision making process.
Jason valdez and I were the visual designers, while Andrew Wollner was the project manager. I created the proto-persona, journey map, wireframe and mobile design. I was also responsible for development.
I set out to create an intuitive navigation stucture reflecting new initiatives and partnerships.
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The new website has pertinent information on the AmeriCorps program and internship opportunities. Recommendation was made to create an online form in order to help alleviate the problem of high volume calls.
Requests for information emails correspondence reduced considerably in the course of a few months, as content on the website was updated frequently.