Curb Appeal: Designing Websites for Prospective Students

High school sophomores and juniors in their college search mode have a limited set of questions they want to answer when they come to a college website. Here’s what Royall & Company learned: “They might use websites to answer these questions: Where can I get in? What schools can I afford to attend? Will I be able to study in my area of interest?” As a result, they look for a list of majors, data on the entering class (test scores and other information), costs, and a limited set of other information.

This pragmatism is, in my view, one of the most fascinating characteristics of how teens use college and university websites. Here’s what they told Noel Levitz they want to do on a college website:

1. Complete a financial aid estimator form (88%)
2. Complete a tuition cost calculator form (83%)
3. Complete an admissions application online (81%)
4. Request a campus visit by completing a form (81%)

When they return to your site as seniors, they’ve already checked you out and their needs are different. Again from Royall & Company: “Seniors have already been through this screening process. They are using websites to inform their decision of where to apply, to develop a strong application, and to make a final choice from among schools in their consideration set. Some of the topics will be the same ones they viewed as sophomores and juniors at the websites of those schools on their short lists.”

What this means in practical terms is that seniors are going to go deeper and broader than younger students. They’ll visit academic department websites, the athletics department, and perhaps the alumni website. For them, key content is the application process and other information that they’ll need to fill out their application.

Whether they’re high school sophomores, juniors, or seniors, teens have notoriously limited attention spans, which is why your website has to be incredibly well organized and searchable for students at all ages. These students are typically looking for quick bites of information and want to move through your site efficiently—they don’t want to wait thirty seconds for a bloated Flash movie or an enormous interactive component to load.

Note: This isn’t to say that these students won’t engage with interactive content—simply that many are in such a hurry to move beyond the homepage that they pay little attention to anything but their next click.

I know this is counterintuitive: I hear from admission people all the time about how “important” interactive content is. All I can say is that the research-by Royall & Company, by The Princeton Review, and by Noel-Levitz-confirms my belief.

In our own usability testing we’ve seen that most student are interested in interactive content deeper in the site. The same students that breeze past general-interest interactive piece featured on the homepage will stop and explore a narrowly focused interactive component embedded elsewhere. Serve up an interactive piece showcasing laboratories on the Biology department page and the students that visit will likely engage. Add video clips from the latest concerts and performances on the Theater department page and know that curious prospectives will find them.

These solutions aren’t as “glamorous” as placing a video welcome message from the president on the homepage but they’re a whole lot more effective.

More:

Noel Levitz, “Engaging the “Social Networking” Generation”
Royall & Company, “Insights_for_Institutional_Website_Design.pdf” [note: this is a PDF].