Dundee & Angus College
- Website design
- UX research
- System integration
A new take on the typical college website design, focusing on people and their future career development.
Part one
The brief
Dundee and Angus College is a forward thinking institution which focuses primarily on careers not just courses.
Supporting learners at whatever stage they are at on the career ladder and engaging with various businesses across the region. D&A College needed a new online storefront which communicated equally to both audiences.
Part two
The work
Internal client workshops, which included participation from key stakeholders, staff and students kicked off the process of designing the new website.
Workshop findings fed into the next phase. User profiles were devised enabling us to glean a detailed understanding of what each users needs were, where their were sticking points and what they need to achieve when visiting the website.
Attract, recruit and retain
Finding information and acting up on it through calls to action is a key focus for any website but for colleges, finding information with ease is vital. Various phases of categorisation testing helped shape the structure of the website, ensuring that we met user expectations at all stages for their journey, creating a clear user centred sitemap. This set the groundwork for the next phase of the design. With a validated site structure in place, we began visually creating wireframes to develop key information blocks throughout the pages. Simplification of information, making it easy to find and calls to action in the right places. Always, from a user first perspective
Bringing it all together
The design had to prominently feature people. Great quality imagery which focused not just on happy people, but people actually engrossed the process of learning. We created a photography brief to help capture the spirit of the college. Students and staff in their natural environment undertaking day to day tasks. Close ups of work in progress, the college campuses, life at the college and a general feel for the Dundee and Angus area.
Using the college’s colourful brand palette as a starting point, we needed to create a visual language that was unique to D&A College. We created graphic devices, patterns, elements, and material, some of which were familiar, others more abstract, to act as embellishments throughout the website. These devices also helped bring focus to specific information and highlight key calls to action.
Have a look at the D&A website dundeeandangus.ac.uk
Good to great
Pivotal to the new website design was the menu which was unique in the college sector. The navigation allowed users to travel throughout the site easily with intuitive labelling and styling.
The expandable navigation also worked seamlessly on smaller devices, making it efficient both for desktop and mobile use.
Part three
The results
The new design is the culmination of many parts. From workshop analysis, cat testing and wireframe prototypes, information and graphic design to creating a website which is as unique as Dundee and Angus itself.
“Three Part Story impressed us from the get-go. At the pitch they seemed know more about our work, our jobs and our challenges than we did with clear HE/FE experience across the board from our brand and communications to our international work and ambitions. They guided us through a very enjoyable but professional process and experience with expert consultancy and very enjoyable, invaluable workshops with staff. Their engaged with our own audiences was the same which led to some first-class insights providing strong evidence to ensure buy inn and agreement from senior stakeholders. We love our website and the team love how easy, flexible and empowering the Content Management system is. For the first time ever, we feel in complete control of our website and that we are not held back. Thanks to our workshops we also know our own brand and ourselves better than ever, we know what we are trying to achieve in a wider sense and what our audiences need and want. I can’t recommend them enough as a partner, they are honest and brilliant at what they do and I see us being partners for many, many years ahead.”
Anne Cant, International & marketing manager, D&A college