Two of the most exciting new websites we’ve had the pleasure to see launch recently were tackled by the same institution — Tufts University. We’re really proud of the work the staff has done for the graduate programs in arts, sciences, and engineering and student life websites. I caught up with two of the key people involved with these relaunches recently to discuss their thoughts and reflections on what’s been accomplished. Heidi Brown is the director of Communications at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and co-led the effort to relaunch the graduate school website. Caitlin Felsman is a communications specialist within the division of student services and led the student life project.
Here’s what they had to say:
Heidi (graduate school): The initial responses were overwhelmingly positive. People have mentioned the look and feel, the vibrancy, the change from before. This was the first of the three mStoner sites that launched — for those outside of the core group, it was thrilling to see.
Caitlin (student life): What I’m hearing from students has been really positive. A new group of students has never seen this, so it’s great to see what they think as new users to a new website. On the other side, there has been a lot of adjustment to the change from faculty and staff. Particularly from the accessibility office, this website is going to make their lives a lot easier.
Heidi: The biggest risks and changes were: coming off the Tufts home-grown technology that’s been in place since 2008; the structural changes; and looking at our content from the outside in, instead of from the inside out. Being audience-centric instead of Tufts-centric was absolutely needed, and we accomplished that. The other change was to establish a narrative, make it more engaging, something people might interact with — with stories, imagery, features, everything focused on the visitor.
Caitlin: Having a complete user focus meant a huge shift in the way we write content, from institutional, legal speak to ‘we and you’. We’ve never had a uniform language structure between departments. Just because we’d always done it this way didn’t mean we should continue to do it that way. We’re such a dynamic, changing community — holding onto that didn’t make too much sense.
Caitlin: For students, the info cards (quick previews of student resources) were very exciting and modeled the Tufts Life pages we had in the past. ‘I need to do this’ and ‘I want this’ is the way they think. Faculty and staff feel that they don’t need the preview information, but are learning to use the full list. Students are used to the Gmail and Facebook structure of ‘Maybe you didn’t know that this was a task, but here’s the task.’ The big shift (for those working at Tufts) is putting yourself in the shoes of someone who has no idea how things work. It’s a really hard mental exercise, but it helps to model that by asking people to imagine their experience at a doctor’s office or going to a baseball game.
Our commitment to making this easy for students to use is ongoing — we’re conducting a series of focus groups several months after launch that will inform future improvements to the user experience.
Heidi: It’s really important to start with a clear buy-in. Once you have a contract, and even beyond, that buy-in needs to continue from a well-defined stakeholder team. Some of the problems we had were varying levels of participation among stakeholders. The graduate project involved two schools combining to create a shared entity, which added layers of complexity. You need to know your brand, your identity, and report back to your stakeholders — even if they are not directly involved in the development process, keep them informed regardless.
Caitlin: You need to acknowledge and validate people’s anxiety all along the way. I was so involved and so close to it, that I kept forgetting just how much of a change this was. It was important to remember that this was the first time they were seeing this work, and it was a lesson learned — what is familiar to the project team is brand new to stakeholders. We built glossaries, an editing manual, and a style guide midway through the project. It would have been good to have that right from the start. It highlights the areas where you haven’t made decisions in a long time or ever. It’s also important to build a project team that has many different kinds of experts right from the start. We were bringing in editors in the summer, bringing in people who have expertise on certain things at different points. Having all of them from the beginning would have been ideal.
Heidi: A team approach that relied on skills spread across the team, each contributing to the whole. Learning not to feel a sense of propriety, but to be open to seeking advice from people both inside and outside the project. I think it was really helpful to understand the essence of the partnership with mStoner. I had to remind myself to look beyond the line items on the contract and realize that you are our partners and have been through this a million times. It was great to be able to ask, ‘Can you provide a reality check?, Can we schedule a quick meeting for you to meet with our team?’ You guys never failed to deliver.
Caitlin: If we were going to be successful, we had to stay student-focused. Keeping that user in mind through all things, every time you ask, ‘When do you need things done by?’ and ‘How do you need to do things?’
We’re proud to have worked with Tufts as a partner and to witness these great accomplishments. To the Tufts team I say, “Great job!”
We’re not done yet, though — our time together continues as we work to redesign and relaunch the main Tufts.edu home page. Stay tuned!