Notes for my slideshow: Designed by Committee: An Analytics and User-Focused Approach to the Overhaul of the K-State Global Campus Homepage

1. eduWeb 2018 Presentation
Designed by Committee: An Analytics and User-Focused Approach to the Overhaul of the K-
State Global Campus Homepage
SLIDE ONE
Introduction
Thank you for taking the time to be a part of this presentation. My name is Neal Wollenberg, and
I’m the Web Coordinator/Developer at Kansas State University’s Global Campus. I oversee,
manage, and develop our overall web presence, as well as the web presences of our
Conferences and Non-Credit Programs all of which is roughly a couple of thousand pages.
I want to add a disclaimer to this presentation as well. This isn’t a be-all end-all presentation that
tells you how to completely revamp your homepage or web presence perfectly. A lot of the ideas
I’ll present aren’t new, and it’s also highly likely that you or your group, company, university, et
cetera, would do it completely differently.
SLIDE TWO
So let’s get started.
At the end of 2016, I sat with my direct supervisor and listed a set of goals, tasks, and projects
that would define my year. One of those projects was to be the re-design and development of
the K-State Global Campus homepage, which is the public face of K-State’s online learning
campus. Another of my goals was to attend a conference for professional development, which
ended up being the eduWeb 2017 Conference in Boston, MA.
Two things occurred during this conference:
SLIDE THREE
1. I learned more about digital and social marketing for higher education over several days
than I had learned over the past 15 years. Granted, I wasn’t actively trying to learn
anything about digital or social marketing, but still… it was an incredibly insightful
conference.
SLIDE FOUR
2. The second thing that occurred was a bit more personal. My mom had a major heart
attack on the next to last day of the conference and subsequently passed away on
August 16. Thankfully, I was able to get back to Kansas and spend time with her during
her last few days.
I’m not disclosing that last issue in order to touch a sympathetic nerve, but more so to address
the fact that no matter where you are or what you’re doing with a major project, there are many
things that can happen. One of which is that you’ll learn new things, and they will affect the
outcome of your project. This should be expected. The second thing is that personal tragedy
can shroud your view of a major project, and will likely be unexpected.

2. SLIDE FIVE
Who we are
The IS (Information Services) team at Global Campus is small, especially when you consider
what we’ve been able to accomplish. Kathy manages our group, delivers reports to leadership
about progress on projects, program updates including real-time data on enrollment, and more.
Dane provides half-time help with the various databases that are used by our coordinators, and
Spencer works within the Power BI environment to provide reports to coordinators that show
enrollments, student statistics, dropout rates, finish rates, et cetera.
And finally, the WebTeam - which consists of myself and generally one student, who is my
direct report. (sometimes two if I’m lucky and budgets are good.)
SLIDE SIX
Let’s talk about direct report team members for a moment…
In order to successfully execute something of this scope in a way that allows committee input, is
that it is imperative that you (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) choose good quality team members.
Not only for your direct team, but also for your committee. So regarding my student worker, I
looked for more than just a warm body to fill a seat and do copy and paste edits and upload
images.
I’ve been very fortunate in that regard, and it’s given me a bit of insight into what to look for
when I’m hiring. For instance, my student Derek, who was instrumental in helping execute this
project, (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) was highly qualified for the role. He was a sophomore in
Computer Science, and had a solid grasp of HTML, CSS, and javascript. What really caught my
attention about Derek was that he had completed his associates degree before he graduated
high school. This told me that he had drive and would likely be willing to go above and beyond
in order to be successful. (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) It was a detail that showed me that he
had initiative.
SLIDE SEVEN
This leads me to my first key point:
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) When you are creating a team or committee to oversee the
development of a project, look at the details, even if they seemtrivial. (MOUSE CLICK on
SLIDE) And you want to view both the positive and negative details. We’ll talk about this when
we take a look at the committee selection process.
Alright, let’s talk a bit about where we were and what our analytics were showing us.
SLIDE EIGHT
Where we were

3. In 2017, the Global Campus web presence was functional, however, it lacked what many would
have considered an aesthetic quality. Most of the pages, including the home page, consisted of
a layout that included a
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) K-State branded masthead,
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) Global campus identity and bread crumbs,
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) banner,
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) constant sitewide horizontal navigation,
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) and below that, a 3-column grid for the page content. The left
column contains sectional navigation that changes based on where the user is within the site, a
center content column, and in most cases a right hand column that was utilized for informational
purposes such as how to apply, how to receive information, quick facts, and sometimes award
badges or other various items.
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) Below all of this, a universal KSU branded footer.
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) All pretty standard… in 2007.
We knew, based on analytics, some anecdotal evidence of what other online campuses were
doing, and our own experience in web development, that the homepage was not serving the
purposes for which it was needed.
Collectively, we felt we needed a stronger homepage presence. A page that could focus more
on being a landing area, a conduit for general users who were seeking information about Global
Campus, and a page that could be utilized in future marketing campaigns. We also wanted the
page to serve as a template for other high traffic areas of our site or areas toward where we
may want to direct traffic.
SLIDE NINE
The Analytics for where we were - January 1, 2017 through June 26, 2017
We try to use Google Analytics fairly extensively when we’re making major decisions about our
website. Our hope in doing this is that the data we have will show us in which direction we to
move. Analytics also provides facts that can be presented to anyone who might have questions
about why certain decisions were made. Facts like - 56% of our users find our homepage
through organic search, as opposed to - we think a lot of our users are finding us through “the
google”. Analytics also provides a solid foundation for figuring out the behaviors of your users.
We discovered through Google Analytics Behavior flow that from Jan 1, 2017 through June 26,
2017, out of 30k users:
SLIDE TEN
● (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) 5.7k were clicking through to our courses/degrees page,
which placed it in the number 1 position.
SLIDE ELEVEN
● The second position was our programs page, which saw 3k users. (MOUSE CLICK on
SLIDE) The interesting tidbit about this specific behavior was that almost all of our users

4. would go to the programs page, then immediately click on courses/degrees. (MOUSE
CLICK on SLIDE)
SLIDE TWELVE
● 2.1k users were moving from the home page to our distance page, which we later
permanently redirected to our online page. (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) And again, many
of our users ended up on the courses/degrees page from there.
SLIDE THIRTEEN
● 1.1k users went from our homepage to our about/contact page. When I saw this I
wondered, how many of them were really there just to find out more about Global
Campus, and how many were there to contact someone from Global Campus? Or were
they simply looking for something else because they were frustrated that they weren’t
able to find that for which they were looking in the first place. So when I explored the
behavior flow on this metric, I discovered that once again, many went to
courses/degrees from this page, or ended up circling back to the homepage. The
remaining users ended up at either the staff page, the students page, or a handful of
other pages.
SLIDE FOURTEEN
● Finally, rounding out the top five were 835 users (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) who
managed to find our tuition and fees page, which was, at the time buried about 3
directories down under courses/registration/tuition-fees.
As you’re likely aware, a university’s courses/degrees and cost, are two of the top three things
about which a potential student wants to know. We saw the trend of users flowing through to
courses/degrees, but for our tuition and fees page to see fifth place, and relativelylow
traffic proved that it was hidden so well that roughly 97% of the entire 30,000 users were
not finding the page.
Obviously, not all 30,000 visitors during that time period came to the site looking for tuition and
fees, but I had to wonder, since that’s one of the top requests of a potential student, how come
only 835 made it? And the reality is, our homepage and its navigation wasn’t conducive to
finding that specific page of our site.
So, what were we going to do about it?
User Experience Testing
SLIDE FIFTEEN

5. When I design a homepage, or anything for that matter, I believe there are three general
questions we always have to ask:
1. Is it created with the user in mind? (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)
2. Is it functional for the user? (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)
3. Is it appropriate for the target audience? (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)
SLIDE SIXTEEN
So, when we apply these to a homepage design or redesign, we can be even more specific and
ask these questions:
1. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) For what purpose or purposes does the page/site exist?
2. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Does the page/site serve these purposes?
3. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Does your audience understand what purpose or purposes
your page/site serves?
When we began this journey, we asked these questions and took a close look at the analytics,
but aside from following a path that had become visible because of Google Analytics, we also
developed a strategy that involved testing our current user interface (the homepage) in order to
find out whether users could accomplish certain tasks, or whether those tasks were less than
easy to accomplish. In short, we wanted to find out where we were succeeding and failing when
a user wanted information from our site.
SLIDE SEVENTEEN
We tested for a number of things, including (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) how to find the cost of a
course, (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) how to find a specific certificate or degree, (MOUSE CLICK
on SLIDE) how to submit an application and some other fairly common things that our students
were asking for. We gathered a number of insights from this testing, but two major items stuck
out and helped us with some of our decision making for the new homepage.
SLIDE EIGHTEEN
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE)
1. The first finding was that users would try to utilize our search function in order to find
what they were looking for within any given testing task. This was especially prevalent in
our 18 to 25 year old demographic.
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE)
2. The second thing that we discovered was that we had a misconception about our
application and request information button placement. Our assumption, based on
various studies that identified the “F-pattern” in eye movement, had been that the upper
right area of the main content portion of the page was a visible spot for these two
buttons. Our testing did not back those assumptions in that when asked specifically how
the user could request information or apply for a program, the majority of our test
subjects either didn’t find the button and found a different way in which to navigate to
those pages, or they simply didn’t find a way to do either and abandoned the task.
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE)
After further research, we now have an understanding that users who are using the “F-pattern”

6. are actually missing chunks of information on a web page without even realizing it. The
Nielsen/Norman group has an excellent article on why this is and how to alleviate this issue.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
Understanding these things helped us reshape our approach to how we wanted to develop the
new homepage, which brings me to my second key point:
SLIDE NINETEEN
It’s incredibly important to utilize Analytics (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) on your site and to
(MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) test your site with objective participants from outside of your
organization. (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) It’s also veryimportant to keep up with what the
Nielsen/Norman group is doing. (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE)
When you turn to the analytics and user testing, you’ll find out things that you didn’t know about
your page (or site) and it’s likely you’ll be surprised by something of which you had no
expectation. When you’re in the corporate world, this works pretty well. You’re the expert and
you have the supporting data.
However, outside the corporate world, there is the university system. And it generally requires
things to be done a bit differently than they might be done in the “corporate” world. One major
difference is that there’s almost always a requirement of a committee.
SLIDE TWENTY
So this is the “designed by committee” portion of my presentation reveals itself.
Here’s a spoiler alert, though… by using analytics and user testing, we already have a solid
basis for how we can redesign the page, which really helps shift the focus of “Why should we
design it this way?” to “Our user testing and analytics show us that a layered design and
multiple instances of certain types of content above the fold help our users navigate more
efficiently to their destinations.” Perhaps more succinctly, the answer is always, because our
analytics and user testing tell us a different, more accurate story of how our users interact with
our page.
Gathering Resources
SLIDE TWENTY-ONE
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)
Web committee selection
As the lead for our Web team, I was tasked with reviewing our current web committee and
making decisions regarding whether or not we should make changes to the committee.
Remember my first key point?
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)

7. When you’re looking to create a team or committee to oversee the development of a
project, look at the details even if they sometimes seeminconsequential. And you want to
view both the positive and negative details in each selection.
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)
Why is this important?
For me, the main reason is because I’ve come to realize (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) that it only
takes one person to completely derail a conversation, a meeting, or any type of project
development. But I’ve noticed that this type of person has certain characteristics:
SLIDE TWENTY-TWO
1. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)They get mired down with details that are either
inconsequential or should be addressed at a different stage in the project.
2. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)They are able to present the absolute worst case scenario,
even if it’s the most implausible scenario ever conceived.
3. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)They always have a roadblock that they just know will screw
up the entire project, so why do it at all?
4. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)They refer to the fact that it’s always been done a certain
way in the past, why change?
5. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)They would prefer to argue about a detail or potential
roadblock than find a solution.
Now, this person, may not always have all of these characteristics, but if you know someone
within your organization who has two or more of them, you may want to consider not having
them on the committee if at all possible.
What I did, since I was going through and modifying the committee and/or selecting new
members, was to avoid people within our organization who I knew had these characteristics.
This was one hugely important thing that I believe helped us with the process of designing a
homepage by committee, and it also sped the process up because consensus was generally
easier to accomplish.
SLIDE TWENTY-THREE
Does this mean you should stack your committee with people who simply agree with you so that
you can move a project forward? (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Absolutely not. Dissent and
disagreement aren’t always a bad thing, but what you’re trying to avoid is someone who will
always be disagreeable or will find something wrong with anything upon which the rest of the
committee might agree.
SLIDE TWENTY-FOUR
Working with the marketing group(s)
So now, let’s talk a little bit about marketing groups. I assume you’ve worked with marketing
groups… some of whom are likely a lot like this old fella’ in the meme. I think I can identify pretty

8. well with that guy, though! Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I WAS that guy back when I
was a creative director.
SLIDE TWENTY-FIVE
Global Campus, in my experience, is set up a bit differently than other entities that have their
own marketing group and web group. I’ve often found that the web group is either part of a
digital marketing group (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE), which is under the general umbrella of
marketing, or (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) the web group is a direct part of the general
marketing group that breaks everything up into different entities. Obviously, these aren’t all of
the models.
Global Campus, however, (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) has a general marketing group (MCS),
which reports to the Director of Marketing and Communications, who then reports to the
Associate Dean of Enrollment Management and Marketing. Information Services, which is
entirely separate from the marketing group, is where the Web Team resides. Our director
reports directly to the Dean of Global Campus, which works well for us as it allows us to be agile
in nature. The short story being that we are able to accomplish a lot of things on our own.
However, we do go to the marketing group with specific requests, these generally being
content-related. This includes items such as final graphics, video, and copy.
Working with the Division of Communications and Marketing
Additionally, we worked with Kansas State University’s Division of Communications and
Marketing. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) For the most part, K-State’s Global Campus is its own
entity, much like you’d see a satellite campus from any other university. However, we still have
to follow standard university guidelines in branding, identity, and overall message.
Over the years, we’ve worked hard to develop a solid relationship with DCM. We spend a lot of
time communicating with them to ensure that we have a reasonable level of transparency in
what we’re doing. We do like to go out and do things on our own or in our own way. We feel
comfortable that we know our audience, and that they know their audience, however, we afford
them the respect they deserve in regard to how they handle the K-State brand.
I firmly believe that because we had taken on a collegial relationship with them, that there have
been things we’ve been able to do before other on campus groups. For instance, We were able
to adopt the university’s cake-layer style layout prior to its official release to the rest of campus,
we utilized their expertise in UX testing, and converted our site to https before other campus
entities, among other things.
It may be different for other places, but I’ve always noted that there always seems to be
territorialism when it comes to marketing, especially when a university or similar entity has a
decentralized marketing and IT structure.

9. As with anything, communication between your main campus marketing, your own marketing
group, and your web team can lead to a better understanding of what your goals are and what
you want your final results to be. There will be a time, when you’ll need to work with your
marketing group or groups, and there are certain things that you’ll need to put in place in order
to avoid bottlenecks. Within my time as an Art Director, Creative Director, and Web Developer,
I’ve noted three things that help make the process more efficient.
SLIDE TWENTY-SIX (Three basic steps to greater efficiencyin developing a site or page)
1. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) If possible, establish a direct method of communication with
graphic designers and writers. By this, I mean, a way to speak directly with the designers
and writers rather than through a project manager or supervisor. This doesn’t mean
you’re trying to dodge your organization’s processes, especially not in the beginning
stages when it’s important for a project manager to develop the workflow, assign tasks,
etc. What this is really about is establishing a good working relationship with the people
who will be helping you the most during the duration of the project. I’ve always believed
that behind everything we do that you have to establish relationships with people. So
being able to communicate directly with your designers and writers will help make the
final product better because it gives them that feeling that there’s value to what they’re
doing. It’s kind of like, “Hey, you’re willing to talk directly with me about this, you respect
my opinion… so I’m going to do the best job I’m able to ensure the success of your
project.”
2. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Another thing that helps is that my original career path was
graphic design, video, and visual communications. So I have a very good level of
expertise in the entire Adobe Creative Cloud suite. In the case of our homepage
development, I didn’t have to make a request for our graphic designers to develop a
mock-up. I did that on my own, which allowed our marketing team to go out and find the
photos and design the graphics based on my original mock-ups. Is this something that
every team will be able to do? Not necessarily, but it’s certainly something to consider if
you have web developers who can put on both hats, so-to-speak. So, if you can, draft
out mock-ups and/or wireframes before ever sending anything to marketing, even if the
marketing department wants to do its own mock-ups. Remember, you have the
analytics and the usability testing results that are providing a framework for the
layout, and to some extent the design of the page.
3. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Try to talk with your graphic designers and writers in person
when working on the big picture. Email or phone calls can be for details, but when it’s
the “big idea” it’s often important to be face-to-face. This does relate back to my first
point, but they’ll also see your passion directly, which is something that is hard to convey
through an email, and you’ll be able to answer their questions right then and there. And
believe me, there will be a lot of questions.
SLIDE TWENTY-SEVEN
Looking at our competition

10. During the development process, it’s always a healthy idea to look at your competition. In fact,
it’s generally a good idea to look at your competition throughout the year. I spend some of my
time looking at websites for online learning offered by other Big XII schools, as well as private
institutions, and other established online learning universities that don’t have a physical campus.
However, I don’t limit myself to just online learning.
Some of the sites I tried to analyze were, (MOUSE CLICK on SLIDE) Colorado State,
University of Nebraska, Wellesly College, Xavier University, University of Notre Dame (which
came out with a great study on why carousel banners are pretty much worthless), University of
Michigan, and Penn State’s World Campus, as well as our Big 12 neighbors among many
others. As I look at these sites, I’m trying to do it as a prospective student by keeping certain
things in mind:
SLIDE TWENTY-EIGHT
1. What are they doing right?
2. What are they doing wrong?
3. Are they solving similar problems to mine?
4. Are they helping me make a “buying” decision? If so, how easy is it to make that
decision?
5. Are they doing something that addresses things we’ve noted in our UX testing?
6. What are the three main things they seem to be highlighting on their site?
7. What purpose does their site serve?
8. Does it accomplish that purpose?
9. If I see something really amazing… are there white papers about the why and how?
What research may have gone into it?
What this does for me, is allows me to build up a knowledge bank account that I can withdraw
from when I’m approached about why I may have designed a particular element of a page or
site the way I did. If someone asks, “Why did you place ‘Search’ right in the middle of the
banner?” I can reply, “Based on our UX testing and the research of institutions like Xavier
University, we found that search was one of the most important interface tools for our users, so
we wanted to make sure it was easy to find.” As soon as you start mentioning a competitor, the
entire conversation changes, and when you can show that this information is backed by your
own testing, it helps to alleviate some of the anxiety your peers may have when you’re doing a
complete redesign.
Obviously, this isn’t the only reason to look at your competition. What it really boils down to is
that by doing this, you can see how they are guiding users through their website, and what, if
anything, you can do that will help users navigate to the places they want to go on your site in
the most efficient manner.
SLIDE TWENTY-NINE
Timeframe

11. As I get closer to showing the final results of our work, I wanted to quickly address the
timeframe within which all of this happened. As I mentioned earlier, I sat down with my direct
supervisor and hammered out my goals for 2017 (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE). One of those
goals was to rebuild our homepage. We didn’t know exactly what this would look like, and with
the amount of other projects we had to work on, we weren’t sure how long it would take.
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) We began UX testing in March of 2017 and (CLICK MOUSE on
SLIDE) finished by end of semester in May. By May, I had also begun actively looking at ways
to develop a layer-styled page either within our current CMS (Omniupdate) or outside of it using
a redirect and CampusPress.(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE).
One of the many fun things about this project, is that we learned quite a bit about our CMS, and
sometimes about how we could “break” some of the rules that were currently in place regarding
how pages are built and the template said pages can use.
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) From May through July, working with our web committee and with
the Division of Communications and marketing, we developed a solid live mock up of the page
that implemented the majority of the functionality that we wanted as well as what we felt was a
visually appealing design. We were actually able to forgo any of the ideas of how to work
around our CMS and develop the page on our own, but once again, that goes back to the good
relationship we have with DCM, because by September, (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) we were
fully working within our CMS using the layered template they’d developed with the caveat that
there was going to be a lot of coordination necessary between both our groups before the page
would go live. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) With that in mind, we set a final delivery date for mid-
December (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) that would sort of coincide with the onset of the
holidays. This was really just in case a lot of things went wrong and we needed to backpedal
and rebuild anything.
SLIDE THIRTY
Resulting Product
And on December 19, I was very pleased to send out an email to our entire staff and selected
members of our main campus announcing the launch of our new homepage. And here is what
we released:
www.global.k-state.edu
SLIDE THIRTY-ONE
Sometimes you don’t always get what you want, even when the analytics and user
testing say otherwise.
I’d love to say that we released the perfect homepage. However, I know that the results of
designing a new homepage can be a lot like viewing a piece of artwork for the first time. Some
people will love it. Some will hate it. Some will be indifferent. Ultimately, though, as designers
and developers, if we utilize the tools we have, test our products and listen to our users, we can

12. develop a product that will serve the purpose for which it was intended and do so in an efficient
manner.
(REFER to HOMEPAGE) Did we get everything we wanted? No. We got a lot of what we
wanted. We would have loved to have a search field right on the banner toward the right of the
page. We would have loved to have the horizontal breadcrumb area of our page have less
height. We’d love to minimize the universal footer at the bottom of our page, and as kind of a
behind the scenes thing… we’d love to have control of the <h1> and <h2> elements on all of our
pages, including the homepage. (BACK TO SLIDESHOW)
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) As a result of our user testing and research into other groups who
have done higher ed user testing on websites and pages, we did get a layered homepage that is
relatively easy to navigate, (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) but also delivers the user more quickly
and efficiently to where they’d like to be. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) We implemented multiple
instances of the three things users look for the most when they come to a university page: Cost,
How they can pay for it (financial aid and scholarships), and what courses we offer. We also
have a request for information and an application link above the fold, a layer dedicated to
answer the most asked questions - i.e. “I want to…” as well as many other things like how long
we’ve been doing this (adds to credibility), (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) student success stories
(hey my degree is the same as the one you get on the main campus), stats and strengths,
videos, and a super-footer with our boilerplate information on it. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)
And we also gained a template that we can modify and utilize for our program pages… pages
that we’ll be enhancing based on our analytics, and what our users want.
What we also gained was information:
1) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) We know how to do this again
2) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) We became more intimately familiar with our CMS and how
to manipulate it to our needs.
a) We know that if we want to, we can move the search form that resides in a
previously “untouchable” template area, to the middle of our banner area if we
want.
b) We know we can reduce the height on the breadcrumb layer if we want - and
apologize later.
3) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) We gained valuable insight because of our UX testing
4) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) And we know that based on our analytics, these changes
have had an impact on how we’re converting users who come to our site to enrollees in
our programs.
5) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) We learned that we have to look at Google Analytics
holistically. If you don’t, you end up missing parts of the picture that can be incredibly
important.
SLIDE THIRTY-TWO
What are our analytics are showing now?

13. So, what are we seeing in our analytics now? I’d like to close out with the following, then after
we can open this up to questions. Also, please keep in mind that we have so many things going
on with our site that I fully realize some or a lot of this information may not have been directly
affected by our homepage redevelopment.
So, let’s take a quick look using the same January through June time period from 2018 that we
used from 2017. Here’s what we discovered:
1) Our behavior analytics showed changes in the top five interactions that started from the
home page. (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) First was traffic to courses/degrees, (CLICK
MOUSE on SLIDE) second tuition and fees, (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) third
scholarships, (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) fourth start the application process, and in
fifth, (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) our online page.
SLIDE THIRTY-THREE
2) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)Information request completions increased by 39%.
3) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)Our overall goals conversion rate went from 43% to 57%.
4) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)We saw a 41% increase in pageviews to our Tuition and
Fees page. We believe this was a direct result of changes we made to our homepage
and can be seen in our Google Analytics through the behavior flow. To us, this was a
major win because we knew our users weren’t finding this information before. (This
information was taken from June 6 through July 9 in 2017 and 2018). This specific goal
was not set until June 6, 2017 and I wanted an apples to apples comparison and the
latest date I could use at the time I was developing this presentation was July 9.
5) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)We saw an increase in goal completion for our courses and
degrees page. We knew we were having some issues with users finding this page. So
our analytics show from January 2017 through June 6, 2017, limited goal conversion.
Then on June 6, the conversions begin to spike and do so for the rest of the year. This is
likely because we changed our horizontal navigation to reflect where we were going to
go with the layered version of our homepage. We believe this helped users find the
courses/degrees page more efficiently because it placed it prominently within the
navigation instead of being buried two or three deep. With that in mind, we increased our
goal completion for that page by 205%.
6) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)Our goal completion for our scholarships page also saw a
drastic change. There were several reasons for this. First, this page was also moved
within our horizontal navigation on our old homepage, which gave it more visibility. The
second reason was that the page itself was moved into a higher level directory. And of
course, finally, it was given prominent billing within the banner area (above the fold) of
our new homepage when it was released in December of 2017. We believe these three
changes resulted in a 121% increase in goal completions (during a timeframe from June
6 through July 9 in 2017/2018). Due to the truncated timeframe, we’ll very likely see that
percentage drop as we finish out 2018. Our plan is to check analytics between June 6
and December 19 to give us a more accurate measurement.
7) (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE)We saw our homepage value drop from $9.75 to $5.37 - And
this concerned me because we had noticed that time on the homepage had increased,

14. and number of visits had increased by almost 20,000.
SLIDE THIRTY-FOUR
The value should have gone up, right? (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) However, in looking
at the exit rate of (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) 59.95% vs 40.7% and remembering the
behavior flow of the traffic leaving the homepage, when we looked at a more holistic
view (not just the value of the homepage) we saw value increases in other pages that we
had linked directly off the home page. For instance, our courses and degrees page
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) ($30.73 vs $24.87), Tuition and Fees (CLICK MOUSE on
SLIDE) ($27.24 vs $21.50) and a jump in page visit rank from #48 to #4), and
Scholarships (CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) ($15.47 vs $12.82).
SLIDE THIRTY-FIVE
Conclusion
When we look at the overall impact of doing a complete rebuild on our homepage, we recognize
that there is huge value to understanding what Google Analytics tells us. (CLICK MOUSE on
SLIDE)
We also know that in order to accomplish a task like this via committee, (CLICK MOUSE on
SLIDE) we have to choose the right committee members. Not cherry picked because they agree
with our viewpoint, but because they are open-minded, intelligent, and can offer up productive
suggestions to help move the project forward. Conversely, know your committee members.
Keep your eye open for the characteristics that can derail or put a full stop on a project.
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) It’s important to know what your competitors are doing, but don’t
allow this to dictate how you move forward with your project. They may have a cool bell or
whistle, but always ask what purpose it serves and does it create a good user experience. It’s
also important to keep in mind, that your competitors may be in the same boat as you, and are
feeling their way through without utilizing user testing or analytics. In fact, they might even be
looking at what YOU’RE doing!
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Be willing to work directly with the designers, copywriters, and the
marketing teams, both on your main campus as well as within your own organization. There
were several times that the knowledge of our counterparts on campus ended up helping us
develop a better final product, and having good face-to-face relationships with our internal
marketing team sped things up, or helped us jump ahead in line when it came to needing copy
or graphics.
(CLICK MOUSE on SLIDE) Finally, we know we have so much more to do. The homepage was
only the beginning. We are currently applying the knowledge we gained from our redesign to the
redesign and redevelopment of several sections of our site. It’s an ongoing process that
requires so much more than just developing a pretty design and applying it to the front of the
site. Maybe next year, we can take a look at a deeper application of these principles to the
entire website for K-State’s Global Campus.

15. SLIDE THIRTY-SIX
And now, with all of that… I want to thank you for being an excellent audience and for taking a
moment to listen to how we were able to successfully navigate a homepage redesign by
committee.
If there are any questions, I’ll be happy to do my best to answer them.