UW Madison College of Engineering

Re-Engineering the Website Experience.

Project Brief.

A university's website plays a critical role in engaging and inspiring prospective students. It also helps to promote the status of the college.

However, for The University of Wisconsin Madisons' College of Engineering, their site wasn't doing it's job.

The site structure was confusing and inconsistent, and content created to engage and inspire prospective students was buried in the website's thousands of pages.

University of Wisconsin College of Engineering

Client Details.

Services Provided.

  • Strategic Planning
  • Experience Design
  • Application Development

Project Solution.

We began this project with strategic planning, which laid the foundation for all work moving forward. During this process we....
  • Conducted stakeholder interviews with staff and current students to better understand the differences on how students perceive the school and how staff explain what the school has to offer.
  • Reviewed regional competitor schools and outlined strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the market place. 
  • Developed user personas and customer journeys in order to create a content heiracrhy that made sense to a prospective student. 
We conducted a content audit to identify the engaging and inspiring content that needed to stay on the site. Over time, this website continued to baloon with content added by departments with no real check and balance on how content should be delivered to prospective or current students. While this website is a resource for current students to find information, it's primary goal as a inspirational sales tool for prospective students was lost. 
Any organization looking to overhaul a website knows that getting everyone on board is necessary, but often challenging. To streamline this process, we provided rationals and data to back up our recommendations. This meant our contacts were better prepared for internal stakeholder meetings and the long list of questions that always arise during redesigns.
The College of Engineering had recently undergone a rebranding effort with their intermal marketing and creative team. However, the team did not any real experience with designing for the web. Ascedia's responsiblity on this project was to create a design structure through wireframing and pattern creation, and then guide the College of Engineering team in applying the brand to these structural assets. The end product produced a clean and elegant design that does not confuse or clutter content. 
We built the new website in WordPress and created building blocks that could be moved and filled with various content. This provided The College of Engineering with the flexibility and site longevity they needed.
UW Madison College of Engineering homepage
UW Madison College of Engineering student life page
UW Madison College of Engineering research page

Project Outcomes.

The College of Engineering has seen impressive results since the conclusion of the redesign.

0 %

Increase in new users

0 %

Increase in sessions

0 %

Increase in pageviews