A Better Business School Website

Services Delivered:

• SiteExecutive CMS
• Website usability and design consulting
• Mobile template development

Benefits:

• Eliminate content publishing bottleneck
• Enhance online brand and recruitment
• Seamless delivery of mobile-friendly content
• Accessibility compliance

Challenge:

As a new comer, our client was largely unknown among, competing “B” Schools when it launched in 2007. To help increase its visibility, in the summer of 2008, the school decided to overhaul its Website. In addition to improving the site’s design and search engine friendliness, the school wanted its new site to comply with Web accessibility guidelines, and render properly on mobile devices, such as the iPhone, Blackberry and other smart phones.

Beyond the issues associated with the site’s look and feel, the license for the underlying Hot Banana CMS platform was up for renewal. Coupled with complaints from members of the site’s user community about ease of use, the school’s Web team began evaluating alternative CMS platforms.

Solution:

As they investigated CMS options, our client’s Web team learned about SiteExecutive from peers at its sister institution. With SiteExecutive, our client could provide content authors with an easy-to-use CMS that was supported and managed by the university’s central IT organization as a shared service, eliminating the cost and complexity of managing and maintaining a standalone application.
Following initial discussions with the school’s Web Marketing and Communications manager, a team of Systems Alliance consultants organized a Web Effectiveness Workshop for the school’s Web and marketing decision makers to gather project requirements.

In the early phase of the project, Systems Alliance provided our client with design and information architecture consulting, working in collaboration with a third-party design firm. During the process of developing the site, our client reiterated its objective of increasing brand awareness through the Web. Systems Alliance helped address this challenge by developing the site’s Flash branding billboard.
In addition to design refinement, Systems Alliance also constructed the site in a way that would optimize search engine performance, specifically through the use of a straightforward CSS and DIV-based layout, contextual links and semantically correct HTML. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and Section 508 standards were also followed to ensure accessibility compliance.

To further enhance usability, Systems Alliance developed the site so every page was mobile-friendly. This was accomplished by leveraging the built-in capabilities of SiteExecutive, which automatically detects visitors using mobile devices, such as iPhones, Droids and Blackberries, and instantly converts site content accordingly. SiteExecutive accomplishes this conversion by swapping templates, a process executed without any effort by content authors.

Finally, Systems Alliance also developed a custom SiteExecutive application for displaying all course data. Now our client’s content authors can easily update and provide site visitors with accurate, course-driven information, such as course name, number, requirements and credits offered, in a timely manner.

Results:

Thanks to SiteExecutive and guidance from Systems Alliance, our client has an easy to maintain, search-engine friendly, mobile-optimized and accessible Website. These capabilities are increasingly relevant for all schools, especially for institutions targeting highly competitive – and increasingly mobile – students with the grades and resources needed to succeed.