Claremont Graduate University

An Enhanced User Experience for Graduate Students

Client

Claremont Graduate University

Year

2023 - present

Expertise

  • Content Strategy
  • UX Design
  • UI Design
  • Responsive Design
  • WordPress
  • Information Architecture

Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is an independent institution in California that encourages students to pursue an academic experience that transcends traditional boundaries. The primary goal of the project was to increase leads — prospective students — and enhance their experience on the site. Ten years after their last major site update, CGU knew they needed to modernize but a full redesign was not possible. They highlighted key areas of improvement which included site navigation, program index and respective pages, and their admissions section. Conducting user interviews and implementing our UX expertise, we were able to provide localized improvements to their current website.

Why this project was a success

  • 1

    Improved readability by refining the appearance and cohesiveness of program page layouts.

  • 2

    Simplified the user journey to seamlessly guide students through the admission process.

  • 3

    Enhanced the content entry experience to ensure optimal UX, performance and accessibility without disrupting internal team workflow.

A Straightforward and Functional Site Navigation

CGU offers a wide range of programs for graduate students to pursue their aspirations. However, without a clear user experience, it can be awkward for users to sort through the available options presented on the site.

By performing stakeholder interviews, we were able to narrow down the primary issues faced when users accessed the program pages.

With this information in mind, we overhauled the pages to be simple, clean, and functional. This involved improving the overall appearance and the ability to find information on each page.

In addition, we reorganized the layout of the menus to be more straightforward in the mobile experience. Now, students can easily locate and analyze the programs that will advance their credentials with ease.

Connecting Students With Their Academic Future

As a leader in transformative graduate education, CGU offers programs to over 2,000 students. In order to provide a seamless experience, their website needed to clearly and directly state information about available opportunities.

As such, the admissions process was identified as an area of utmost importance. The ultimate goal was to simplify the user journey from landing on the site to the application stage in order to increase enrolment to the university.

After performing user research, we worked alongside an education content specialist to revamp the admissions section to ensure that the most important details were highlighted and accessible to users.

We also reworked the application checklist to be more digestible and contain only the most applicable information. The result is an improved guide for prospective students to reference as they prepare for their admissions. We continue to work with the CGU team to optimize this user journey for an improved experience.

An Enhanced Content Entry Experience

When it came to our collaboration with the CGU team, we wanted to ensure that admins were able to independently manage and update their site moving forward.

The content entry on the site was identified as a pain point as it was complicated and difficult to manage the vast amount of content. We worked to enhance this experience so that it was more seamless moving forward.

Ultimately, it was our goal to improve workflow in a way that doesn’t disrupt the internal team’s systems. We wanted to ensure autonomy of the site which meant proposing solutions that were advantageous to their team.

Switching to a retainer model for ongoing support as well as the legacy knowledge of our Senior Developer & WordPress Lead, Dave Kellam, helped to build trust and effectively work with CGU in a way that continues to be beneficial to both teams.

About the client

Claremont Graduate University is like no other graduate-level university in the nation. Founded in 1925, CGU is an independent institution devoted entirely to graduate study.

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