Modernizing Higher Ed – A Website Built for Digitally-Native Growth and Engagement
Edison State modernized its digital experience to engage and grow it’s higher ed community, while enhancing both user experience and administrative efficiency.
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Modernizing Higher Ed – A Website Built for Digitally-Native Growth and Engagement
Edison State modernized its digital experience to engage and grow it’s higher ed community, while enhancing both user experience and administrative efficiency.
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Who
In 1973, Edison State Community College was chartered under provisions of the Ohio Revised Code as the first general and technical college in Ohio.
With close to 5000 students enrolled today, Edison State offers more than thirty associate degrees and one-year certificates, a broad range of baccalaureate transfer programs, developmental course work, and continuing education offerings designed to result in university transfer, career advancement and workforce development.
Like many higher ed institutions, Edison State’s website needed to serve multiple, digitally-native audiences (students, parents, faculty, alumni, and local businesses), but navigating the wealth of information was frustrating and negatively impacted the overall user experience.
Adding to frustration, the site — built on the outdated Ektron platform — was difficult for their team to update and manage without a developer, limiting their ability to drive critical business outcomes, like increased enrollment and audience engagement.
Rather than simply migrate their legacy website, Edison State set out to transform their digital experience to better promote, attract, and engage their growing community.
Edison State partnered with Whereoware to build a modern, user-friendly website and sophisticated design system to improve content discovery, accessibility, and user flows, while equipping team members with a robust toolkit to own their digital experience.
“I am so grateful for the Whereoware team. I felt like they were sitting alongside me and my team, guiding us on best practices, expectations, and recommendations to build a better website and user experience. Whereoware was just great every step of the way, and I would recommend them to anyone else in high education looking to improve their web experience.” Bruce McKenzie, Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Communications at Edison State Community College.
A Modern CMS for Edison: Low-Code, High Impact with Acquia Site Studio
Whereoware migrated Edison State’s website from Ektron to Drupal/Acquia Site Studio, the only low-code platform for the design, build, and management of Drupal websites.
Acquia’s drag-and-drop editor and component-based design system makes it easy for Edison State to create, govern, and manage content.
With this user-friendly content management system (CMS), Edison State can quickly build tailored digital experiences for their diverse audiences, digital campaigns, and future business goals, without relying on developers to create new pages.
Enhanced Content Discovery and UX for Higher Education Audiences
“Our new website puts us at the forefront of digital experiences for higher ed. Whereoware built a more professional, modern, and robust website to improve the overall user experience and website search for our students and other users to more easily find information and resources.”
Whereoware aimed to improve Edison State’s website user flow, so key audiences can quickly find relevant resources (like academic programs, financial aid information, and alumni opportunities).
We began by analyzing user data to identify friction points – areas where users frequently got stuck, encountered outdated information, or abandoned their efforts and used the website’s search tool instead. We also conducted competitive research to see how other higher education websites catered to diverse audience segments.
Whereoware then redesigned the website navigation to:
- Allow users to explore by audience persona or goal
- Better address audience segments’ immediate needs
- Improve digital accessibility for all users
- Simplify navigation options, while offering more intuitive content paths
After reimagining the navigation, we archived outdated pages and rearchitected the content flow to make it easier for different audiences to find relevant information.
We also extended this improved navigation to Edison State’s online catalogs, providing users with a more consistent and intuitive browsing experience.
Future-Ready Design: Elevating Edison's State’s Visual Storytelling and Brand Identity
“Our team just loves using the new CMS and design system. The CMS is so much easier to use than our previous one and our webpages tell a much better and more complete story about our academic offerings, life at the college, and opportunities for businesses and the larger community.”
Whereoware saw an opportunity to elevate Edison State’s digital presence by building a more robust and flexible design system, that would enhance brand recognition, improve visual storytelling, and support future digital strategies aimed at driving engagement and interest in the college.
To achieve this, Whereoware updated Edison State’s style guide to deliver a polished, sophisticated visual aesthetic that allows for greater flexibility in building webpages, differentiating content blocks, and seamlessly integrating brand elements into marketing efforts.
Key website improvements include:
- Refreshed typography
- New primary, secondary, and background colors
- Updated call-to-action (CTA) buttons for better visibility
- Creative recommendations for integrating branded visuals across the website and marketing channels
- Higher color contrast and clear guidelines to improve design accessibility
- New webpage layouts and design components for future scalability
Together, this more robust design system empowers Edison State to own their digital experiences – without relying on IT or developers. Whether building new pages to help students access financial aid or launching marketing campaigns to boost alumni donations, Edison State now has the flexible design and technology foundation to quickly create whatever they need.
With a modern, user-friendly website and refined design system, Edison State can fully leverage their digital experience – creating engaging content and campaigns to strengthen their connection with students, alumni, and the community.
In the two months since site launch (compared year-over-year), Edison State has:
- Increased pageviews 13%
- Increased total users 21%
- Increased website traffic 5%