UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

We were hired by the online education market leader, Noodle Partners, to redesign the website for The University of Virginia’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (UVA SCPS). The Project Managers had hired a coding firm (Winston Project) to handle the backend database and site build but quickly realized their strength was in coding, not in design. We were brought in to take over the design, content reorganization and User Experience. One of the strengths of the Truax & Company team is the ability to design as well as code - having a fundamental understanding of both makes the process more efficient and streamlined.

The UVA SCPS website is the school’s number one marketing tool. It needed to convey the culture and values of UVA SCPS, provide information on all the available degrees, certificates and programs, promote recruitment events and facilitate enrollment. Additionally, the site needed to be a functional resource for existing students and faculty, allowing class registration, faculty information, and access to school notifications and policies.

One of the main goals of the redesign was to get prospective students to sign up for more information and to direct people to the Bachelor’s Program first as that is where the school was hoping to increase enrollment numbers. We achieved this by including a fixed navigation bar with “more info” and “Enroll now” buttons that would always be available. We incorporated sign-up forms in the main header of the site as well towards the bottom of every page.

UVA SCPS had recently rebranded and there was a comprehensive Style Guide that we conformed to. We were able to carry the branding and styles through the site by incorporating custom icons, graphics and image treatments. One of the main elements was the use of an angled shape. We brought this in to the drop down menu and header styles, section dividers and image treatments. The end result was a site that met the UVA Style Guide requirements but was its own unique entity.

Our site has dramatically increased requests for information and applications for school programs.