When Is The Right Time To Redesign Your College’s Website?

Are you planning to redesign your College’s website in the next twelve months?

When are you planning for the revamped website to go live?

More Colleges are asking FEmarketing for advice on when they should launch their web design project.

Here’s the dilemma – do you wait until the summer or do you launch during the academic year?

According to our research, over 60% of the colleges who have redesigned their website over the last three years have launched their new website to coincide with the GCSE results or enrolment period.

The conventional wisdom is that the summer period is the optimum time to tackle the web redesign whilst the learners and staff are away and, in theory, it is less frantic…

Feedback from Colleges we have spoken to suggest that trying to redesign the website over the summer period is not without it’s challenges.   

If you are planning to redesign over the summer please factor in the following:

Get any input or course content from departmental staff in June at the latest and don’t leave it until July to chase them.

If you need to canvass feedback on departmental requirements for the website please ensure this is undertaken as early as possible.

This not only reduces the stress of chasing content but also ensures that you have taken into account any suggested improvements (even if you don’t implement all of them!).

You can nearly bet that when the site is presented initially to staff there will be someone who will express extreme views on what is wrong with it. In our experience this tends to be the person who was the most elusive when you were chasing their content.

Make sure that you have factored in when key personnel at the college and web agency are on vacation

One of the major drawbacks is that key members of the website project team will be naturally out of contact during July and August.

We observed a situation recently where at least 2 members of a project team were absent at the same time for four consecutive weeks – an unavoidable situation as the leave was booked before the web redesign project was even mooted.

As you can imagine this can lead to chaos – at the very least the worst that can happen is that the project can grind to a halt if the situation is not planned in advance.

Make sure your web agency / design team are fully aware of the launch date  

If you need the site to go live at a specific time such as GCSE results or enrolment then it is imperative that all members of the project team are aware of this.

When you are appointing an external agency make sure that they understand the requirements BEFORE you award them the project – ideally get them to confirm in writing before contracts are exchanged that they are aware of the deadlines.

From our research less than 50% of the college website projects we reviewed were completed in time for the initial launch date. 

Decide when you want the revamped site to go live – if you want it fully operational in time for GCSE results and enrolment then make sure that all designs and content are signed off by July – this could allow the web team about 3 weeks to undetake thorough testing of the site.   

Manage the internal expectations of your colleagues…

One College told us of their harrowing experience from a couple of years ago – they had planned their site to go live during October to coincide with the launch of their school leavers campaign.

Unfortunately during the second week of August, the Senior Management Team stated that they wanted the new site to coincide with the new tv advertising campaign in the last week of August.

Needless to say the marketing and web design agency strongly argued their case that the site could not be launched six weeks ahead of schedule.  

Their pleas fell on deaf ears and were told in no uncertain terms that they had to deliver the website in late August and not in October.

The results were frankly shocking and in many ways damaged the credibility of the college as the final product was far inferior due to the rushed nature of the project…

If you are planning to redesign your College’s website in the next twelve months then call us on 01844 355682 and we can point you in the right direction…

Get Feedback From School Leavers On Your Web Content

When was the last time that you asked school leavers or Year 11 learners what they think about your college’s website content?

Over the coming months whilst your colleagues are promoting your college to schools we strongly recommend that you take the opportunity to ask your prospective full-time learners for their feedback on your college’s website.

One of the most valuable parts of the FE College Website Best Practice Project was to ask Year 11 learners to visit FE and Sixth Form college websites.

We asked the participants to think of a qualification or vocational course they would like to pursue and to assess how effective the various college websites were in:  

• Providing the relevant course information
• Promoting the benefits of studying at college
• Outlining the next steps should they wish to either request further information or to enrol

Although many colleges have told us they do actively seek feedback from school leavers, too many rely solely on feedback based on printouts of web content.

The key,  in our opinion, is to observe school leavers as they sit in front of the PC and navigate your college’s website.

If you have ever agonised or argued with your colleagues about what content or images should appear on your college’s website then watching how your target audience navigates your site can offer you invaluable feedback.

Here’s some tips to how to set up your own feedback session:

1. Identify the website content you would like to evaluate and your target audience
2. Decide where you would like to run the feedback sessions – at your college or a school
3. Decide on the ideal size of user group (5 participants should give you significant feedback) 
4. Ask for willing volunteers who are willing to participant (30 minutes of their time to navigate site and offer feedback)
5. Set them a specific task so you can observe their activities
6. Ask the participants to oultine what they are doing and why (and also give feedback on the content / images of pages navigating)   

If you are doing this at your college or on site using college laptops then you can always use screen capture software to record your participants movements or feedback.

You will be amazed at the feedback you will receive.

More importantly it can make you realise what a waste of time it is to spend hours in meetings arguing about content ideas when you can go directly to your target audience and gain a clear understanding of what they like and what they ignore

Have a look at what school leavers told us about FE College websites…