New Style Home Page for Drew University features “Minimal Navigation” Does being different from other higher education websites by itself create a competitive advantage? If that’s the case then Drew University indeed has advanced past its competitors by using a “minimalist” design approach. What is minimalist design strategy? A definition from the Nielsen-Normal Group in […]
Fast, Easy-to-Complete Online Admissions Application from The University of the Pacific How many of your admissions applications are completed on a smartphone? Might more people do that if it were easier to complete? The University of the Pacific first reported on the success of an online admissions application for new freshmen at the AMA Symposium […]
Improving Task Completion at Academic Program Sites at The University of Sheffield… At The University of Sheffield website changes are in progress to improve top task completion in an often neglected area: academic program sites. That’s important to not only faculty and current students, but to potential students as well who want to review academic […]
Tactics can kill marketing strategy… a new example at SUNY Potsdam Let me confess to a marketing obsession… higher education marketing in the last few years has seen a explosion of “brand strategy” efforts in the belief that colleges and universities can “rebrand” themselves to solve marketing challenges and boost enrollment. I’ve no problem with […]
April. Rumor in Michigan is that spring has arrived. Still a bit of snow. Patience. The flowers are twitching. And the marketing continues. The cliché is true: you only have one chance to make a first impression. Introduce your colleagues to the benefits and techniques of “top task research” to create the best possible experience […]
12 Easy-to-Scan Task Topics Show the Power of Words at Mizzou Registrar’s Website Yes, you really don’t need opening images (or images of any sort) on a website page visited by people who just want a quick path to complete the task that brought them to the page. That’s especially true of internal pages for […]
9 Academic Program Areas in “can’t miss” Home Page Location at Victoria University Today’s Link of the Week updates an August 2013 selection… in picking Victoria Univesity at that time we said: “Here’s another strong example of priority placement (upper left corner) of links to find and review academic programs, a top task for future students.” […]
19 Instagram Views Featured on Home Page = Market Research Treasure Trove You won’t lack for things to view on the elaborate Bates College home page. If you persist toward the end of the page you’ll find a collection of 19 Instagram visuals. And you can see the relative popularity of each one, measured by […]
MIT Offers Array of 20 Easy-to-Scan Video Channels You don’t have to look far to find reports of how popular video content is with Millennials (23 to 38 year olds who are the prime recruits for graduate and professional degrees and certificates). Just about every college and university has a YouTube channel. In design, the […]
March. Some of you are waiting for winter. The rest of us know that spring is coming. Sometime. Website speed, especially on mobile, is a key element in successful marketing. For examples of 8 truly rapid sites (and 3 quite slow ones) taken from 45 of my Link of the Week selections visit “8 Winners: […]