Oxford Brookes
What’s the challenge?
Our challenge was to design and build the new Careers Centre website to launch for the 2007 intake. We were asked to review current content, re-work and re-structure it as well as adding innovative new content and features whilst creating a strong identity for the Career Centre that challenges stereotypes and misconceptions.
The starting point
According to statistics from February 2007 from the current site, 72% of visitors viewed just one page on the site and 86% of visits lasted less than 1 minute. This suggested that either the existing content wasn’t perceived as useful, or that users were unable to find the information and simply gave up. Success to us was therefore keeping visitors on the site for longer, getting them to return frequently and converting site visits into actions.
Our answer
Due to budgetary and invoicing constraints, we worked with Oxford Brookes to establish a phased approach to development. Phase one involved consultancy, design project management and URL registration. Phase two saw us delivering copywriting, design development, web development, integration and videos of interviews and CV advice. Finally, phase three involved realising a content management system and keyword search, flash development and five staff video profiles.
Of course, at every single stage of the development we made sure we tailored the content to our audience of students, graduates, academic staff and employers alike. We also restructured some of the content to make sure information is more accessible to stakeholders and used Flash in key areas of the site to add stimulating visuals and interest as well as creating a stronger identity for the centre.
Results
The Oxford Brookes site can be found at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/careers
Unfortunately the website only went live recently for the soft launch so there are no statistics currently available. The full launch is planned for the new year and as soon as we have some figures, we’ll tell you all about them.
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