Utah State University

School of Graduate Studies

June 2024 - August 2024

Project at a Glance

Clarifying the Audience. Elevating the Experience

Too broad to be effective

The site originally tried to serve both current and prospective students, but lacked clarity, focus, and engagement.

Research revealed the true audience

Interviews and usability tests showed current students didn't use the site; prospective students were the ones who needed it most.

Designed for real needs

We shifted the entire strategy to focus on prospective students: streamlining navigation, improving clarity, and showcasing the value of USU.

Clearer, cleaner, and more impactful

The result: more focused content, a 16% increase in engagement on key pages, and a site the marketing team now proudly uses at recruiting events.

The Challenge

Create a site that informs current students and attracts new ones.

The School of Graduate Studies at Utah State University came to our team with a goal: Make the site more useful and more inspiring for both current and prospective graduate students.

They felt that old site was bland and confusing. It wasn't doing justice to the graduate experience at USU, and the marketing team wanted to transform it into something they could proudly share at events.

My Role

I served as the lead designer on this project. My contributions included:

Working closely with the Grad School marketing team to understand their goals and identify pain points

Conducting user research and usability testing to validate design decisions

Creating designs in Figma and handling the majority of site implementation in Modern Campus

Managing our team of student developers, coordinating tasks to meet the project timeline

Discovery

Before we touched a line of code, I spoke with nearly 50 current grad students to understand how they used (or didn't use) the site.

The Surprise Finding?

Almost no current students used the grad school site after they enrolled.

This is because any information they needed about their degree was found on their individual college or program websites, rather than the School of Graduate Studies site.

We also ran targeted usability tests with 10 students trying to find key information. We found:

Confusing Terminology

Acronyms like "GPC" were being used throughout the site, confusing many users.

Ambiguous Navigation

Navigation was structured around audience types (e.g. "Future Students", "Faculty"), which didn't reflect user goals.

Uninspiring Design

The site lacked any visual or emotional appeal to prospective students.

The Shift: Focus on Prospective Students

After our discovery phase, we paused to ask a critical question: who is this site really for? The original goal was to serve both current and prospective graduate students, but our research told a different story. Current students overwhelmingly relied on their individual program pages for information. The Grad School site just wasn't part of their workflow. Instead of duplicating content and adding unnecessary clutter, we saw an opportunity to focus the site on its most impactful audience: prospective students. By doing so, we could bring clarity to the structure, tailor messaging around "Why USU," and turn the site into a more effective recruitment tool.

That insight shaped a clear strategy moving forward. Here's how we approached the redesign

Focus on prospective students as the primary audience

Cut and consolidate pages that are redundant or rarely visited

Simplify navigation to be task-based, not audience-based

Rewrite content to be clearer and more action-oriented

Add "Why USU" marketing content: stats, visuals, and emotional appeal

Before

Navigation Before

Organized around audience types, which didn't match how users approached their tasks and added unnecessary complexity.

After

Navigation After

Refocused and task-based, helping prospective students find what they need faster and with more clarity.

Bringing the Homepage to Life

The old homepage was flat and forgettable, so we reimagined it with prospective students in mind. We introduced interactive image cards in place of plain buttons to create a more engaging experience, built highlight cards showcasing key stats about USU to establish credibility, and incorporated aerial campus photography to evoke a sense of place and pride. These visual and structural updates brought energy to the site and helped tell a clear, more compelling story about what makes graduate study at USU unique.

Before

Original Homepage

Bland design with unclear audience and confusing navigation

After

Redesigned Homepage

Focused, engaging design tailored for prospective students

Results

After the launch of the redesigned site, stakeholder and user feedback indicated a strong positive reception.

We saw increased engagement from prospective students, including a 16% average increase in page views on content tailored to them

Students described the new site as "welcoming," "fun," and "full of Aggie pride"

Marketing began using the site much more actively at recruiting events

But the Biggest Win?

We helped the School of Graduate Studies shift focus to where it mattered most: connecting with future students, not duplicating content for current ones. With a clearer purpose and more focused audience, the marketing team now has a streamlined, targeted website they can confidently build on, rather than wasting time maintaining underused pages and fragmented information.