Integrity recently wrapped a huge UX strategy, research and consulting effort, delivering a recommendation for Creighton University's online consumer experience program.
Creighton, a Jesuit university in Omaha, is well known for its outstanding academics and campus experience – but their online experience has struggled to keep pace with the rapid changes in technology. Like many higher education universities, Creighton has amassed a collection of independent tools and applications over the years, resulting in a disjointed, hard-to-use online experience.
Knowing technology is playing a bigger and bigger role in higher education, Creighton is seeking to create a unified experience that will benefit their entire user base of students, faculty, staff, parents and alumni.
They asked us to put our UX and web application development expertise, as well as our experience in higher education, to use for them by providing a technology recommendation based on their business and user needs.
Our highest priority on any project is the user, so our first step was to find out everything there is to know about Creighton's unique user base. We conducted interviews with university leadership, facilitated focus groups of students, faculty and staff and talked with more than 100 stakeholders over the phone.
We worked with Creighton's internal IT team to review and analyze the insights and data we gathered during the extensive discovery phase.
Our comprehensive understanding of each segment of users informed the final deliverable, a highly detailed, thorough outline of research findings and, most significantly, a proposed solution to optimize Creighton's online experience.
We outlined the minimum viable product – addressing the need to "start small" while still meeting every user group's primary goals – as well as the technological requirements for building it. Equally as important were the portions defining implementation plans and processes for governance and ongoing application support.
"Creighton is going about the update of their online experience platform the right way," said Integrity Partner and Chief Creative Officer Ed Morrissey, "which has made working with them an amazing opportunity for Integrity. Our philosophy says that nothing should be built without a complete understanding of what its users want and need. And the Creighton team is fully on board with this because they know as well as we do, a solution that doesn't start with the user won't end up being useful."
We're looking forward to watching Creighton transform its digital experience, creating a higher education environment that's as good on the web as it is on campus. Stay tuned for updates!
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