The Vendor is required to provide website redesign services to using WordPress, open source or a commonly reused out-of-the-box website.
- New website will serve primarily as a recruitment, marketing and fundraising tool for the college and must be designed to:
a. Grow enrollment.
b. Improve prospective / current students and community members’ ability to easily access college resources and services.
c. Present a positive presence and perception of the college throughout the community.
- Simplified navigation:
• The current website has way too much competing navigation, making it difficult to find what you’re looking for and looks cluttered. The new website should utilize best practice standards to create a simplified, minimalist navigation, landing pages for curriculum pathways and information architecture.
- Mobile optimization:
• Provide a mobile-first design, optimized for mobile devices using cellular phones and tablets running either Android or iOS systems. Desktop design should be secondary to mobile.
- Information architecture:
• Develop an intuitive, easy-to-use, flexible information architecture and site navigation that is scalable, allows primary audiences easy and rapid access to key content, logical landing pages and supports the college’s strategic messaging.
• Information design should account for the need to have changing, relevant and frequently updated content on key sections of the website. The information design should support a content strategy that incorporates online engagement tools such as social media, multimedia assets, downloadable documents, interactive content such as the virtual tour, videos, etc.
- Recruitment forward design and user experience:
- The website should prioritize recruitment of prospective students with:
• Conversion focused landing pages
• Program pages that highlight value, return on investment, and seek to convert end users.
• Various opportunities to connect with the college including live chat, easy to find call/email.
• Personalized visitor journeys for various student personas and easy-to-understand information on how different groups should apply, etc.
• Best practice design/messaging/features to nudge visitors to convert using personalized content and messaging.
• Ability to incorporate and deliver high quality video to visitors. - Brand consistency:
• Create a design that adheres to the college’s brand and style standard, provides college brand consistency across all divisions of the College while providing some flexibility to present information dynamically using different web elements for visual appearance.
• The website should effectively tell the brand story of the College throughout, highlighting its history, strengths, student successes, etc.
- Provide the following website deliverables:
- Site Capabilities
• Effectively communicates with prospective and current students – with the overall goal of increasing student enrollment and retention.
• Engage alumni and community members in ongoing relationship with College.
• Provide scalable site architecture to allow for growth, ease of maintenance and the ability to add new functionality over time.
• Navigation based on end user.
• Responsive design
•Intuitive navigation
- Discovery, Strategy, User Experience and Information Architecture
• Project discovery and research
• Deep dive into Google Analytics for current website to inform redesign project.
• Review of provided brand guidelines.
• Review of brand personas
• Web strategy creative brief
• Proposed information architecture, user experience and content strategy
• Review of current website governance and site management and provide a brief with recommendations for any changes for current website management and support.
- Design/Build
• The vendor will need to provide a content strategy and outline and then provide written copy for primary landing pages
• Design renderings for page layouts and templates (specific dimensions to be determined in the site strategy)- homepage, landing pages, curriculum pathway pages, program pages, news landing pages, news story page (if applicable), campus directory, faculty / staff bios page, campus calendar landing page, campus calendar events page, integration of APIs (e.g., social channels: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).
• Develop content strategy to ensure updated, valuable content across all areas of the website.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year