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Going All-in On Prospective Students
- 1. Going on Prospective Students Tony Rose, Executive Strategist, UX/Content | @TonyRoseUX USER-CENTERED WEB FOR HIGHER ED
- 2. “The more people you cater to, the less relevant and meaningful your content becomes—for everyone.” Rick Allen, “Defining Target Audiences: Who Are We Talking To, Really?” 7/28/15 meetcontent.com/blog/defining-target-audiences-who-are-we-talking-to-really/
- 3. What does it mean to go “All-In”?
- 4. That’s relative; this is absolute Traditional thinking: “Prioritize content for your primary users” Going
- 5. Going All-In means focusing on one user group (…at a time) What does it mean to go “All-In”?
- 6. Focusing on one user group “We know who you are, we know why you’re here, we have what you’re looking for, and we’re going to help you.”
- 7. “Students perceive the audience to be students, but still find the messages mostly to be about marketing the institution” Katrina A. Meyer, Stephanie Jones, “Information Found and Not Found: What University Websites Tell Students,” Fall, 2011 http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall143/meyer_jones143.html
- 8. (Do they know why I’m here?) (Do they know who I am?) Were they all-in for me? (A CASE STUDY) (Are they going to help me?)
- 9. Do they know who I am?
- 10. Do they know why I’m here?
- 12. Do they know who I am?
- 13. Are they going to help me? (eventually…)
- 14. Removed a university from consideration after a bad experience with their website Emily Cretella, 7 content marketing stats that should shake higher education – and 5 ways to act on them http://cursivecontent.com/
- 15. Removed a school from their prospect list because of a bad experience Katrina A. Meyer, Stephanie Jones, “Information Found and Not Found: What University Websites Tell Students,” Fall, 2011 http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall143/meyer_jones143.html
- 17. First you need to know why you need them Traditional thinking: “Step one is to know your audience” Going
- 18. Plan accordingly
- 20. Properly positioning your institution takes work, but will improve your marketing by reducing the alternatives. Philip Morgan, “Positioining Crash Course,” philipmorganconsulting.com
- 21. What are we doing that makes sense? Do we have the right people in the right seats? How much content do we really need to create, and how often? — Kristina Halvorson Marcia Riefer Johnston, “Content Strategy for Marketers: Insights From Kristina Halvorson” contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/09/content-strategy-halvorson/
- 22. Build a process, not a website Plan accordingly
- 23. Share the responsibility Constituents/contributors Campus community Leadership Building a process, not a website
- 24. Always include students in that process Up-front In-process Pre-launch? Post-launch (Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think) Building a process, not a website
- 25. Evolve from day one Traditional thinking: “First create your web- site, then maintain it” Going
- 26. 26 “We know who you are”
- 27. Your users are not an audience “We know who you are”
- 28. They’re not your mom “We know who you are”
- 29. Writing for your mom : Start at the very beginning and don’t leave out a thing Emphasize all the best things about you And she’ll read every word. Twice.
- 30. Start with their situation and get to the point Emphasize and contextualize what’s important to them And they’ll still read as little as possible Writing for prospective students :
- 31. They’re not you. “We know who you are”
- 32. Thinking from another perspective
- 33. Thinking from another perspective
- 34. They’re all that “We know who you are”
- 35. Narcissistic, overconfident, entitled, stunted, and lazy Ashley Hennigan, The Prospective Student User Cornell University www.slideshare.net/ashleyhenn/ux- and-the-prospective-student-user Millennials in particular… Nice, accepting, informed but inactive, cooperative Josh Sanburn, “Millennials: The Next Greatest Generation?” Time Magazine nation.time.com/2013/05/09/millennials- the-next-greatest-generation/ The “most educated generation to date” Kate Meyer, “Millennials as Digital Natives: Myths and Realities” Nielsen Norman Group www.nngroup.com/articles/millennials- digital-natives/
- 36. Millennials in particular… The “most educated generation to date” ?
- 38. Everyone can be primary, in their own place Traditional thinking: “Establish primary, secondary, and tertiary users” Going
- 39. A place for everyone Why should we isolate content for different users? For ME For EVERYONE
- 40. A place for everyone What should we put there? User-specific content (But not ALL of it) Guidance Feeds
- 41. “[exclusively] Audience-based navigation demands additional cognitive effort from users” Katie Sherwin, “Audience-Based Navigation: 5 Reasons to Avoid It” www.nngroup.com/articles/audience-based-navigation/
- 42. A place for everyone User types are defined not only by who they are, but by what they are trying to do
- 43. Northampton Community college Cornell University Harford Community College Central Carolina Community College University of Pennsylvania University of Tulsa Harvard University
- 44. “We know why you’re here” 44
- 45. Position yourself immediately and meaningfully with prospective students Traditional thinking: “Feature your latest activities to keep the content fresh” Going
- 46. What will they remember if they only stay for a few seconds? Positioning by example (“My dad and his friends on the roof”)
- 47. What will they remember if they only stay for a few seconds? Positioning by design…
- 48. Is your “Welcome” page really welcoming? Taking in the first person Structuring by org chart Jargon/lingo Making an immediate impression
- 49. Making an immediate impression
- 50. Focus! “We know why you’re here”
- 51. Focus! Simplicity isn’t a goal unto itself It just helps you focus on what’s important. Users come to DO something. Why make them hunt for it?
- 52. Getting burned by lack of focus? (ANOTHER CASE STUDY)
- 53. Getting burned by lack of focus? (ANOTHER CASE STUDY) Partonize me > Tell me what to do > Congratulate yourself > Alert me about a potential danger >
- 54. (Guess which one had been sued) Getting burned by lack of focus? (ANOTHER CASE STUDY)
- 55. “We have what you’re looking for” 55
- 56. Lead with the information you know they want Traditional thinking: “Provide and organize all the information they might find useful” Going
- 57. Information most valued by students pertains to decision support “We have what you’re looking for”
- 58. (But can you find it?)
- 59. Organize by topic, not name Provide multiple avenues Contextualize (But can you find it?)
- 60. What about the rest? “We have what you’re looking for”
- 61. Pick up or create the content called for by the new structure Traditional thinking: “Apply existing content according to the new structure” Going
- 62. What about the rest? What are we going to do with all this content? (ONE LAST CASE STUDY) “Shouldn’t we start working on these (80,000) pages?”
- 63. Reasons to include certain content It will engage the people we need in order to fulfill our objectives According to our plan Validated through testing
- 64. NON-reasons to include certain content
- 65. But what do you tell people? “We have what you’re looking for”
- 66. What do you tell people? Appeal to a higher authority Share the responsibility
- 67. What do you tell people? We have to stick to the plan (You approved it; we’ve been sharing it) Shall we add all this other stuff too? We do have a place for this… (maybe) And my personal favorite…
- 68. What do you tell people? “We’ll have to test that!”
- 69. Focus on the people you need Build a process, not a website Include your students Write for them, not for you or your mom Make everyone else primary too Share the responsibility Stick to the plan and evolve (the exceptions may be your downfall) The bottom line “We know who you are, we know why you’re here, we have what you’re looking for, and we’re going to help you.”
Notas del editor
- Digital Wave: User-centered consultation, design, and development for web and mobile apps since 1993, part of Antech Systems, Inc. Specialists in improving complex web experiences for higher ed, from small colleges to major universities including Rutgers, George Mason, and Thomas Jefferson Tony Rose: Principal and executive consultant in user experience and content strategy
- Challenging conventional thinking… It’s not about making the primary users’ content “stand out” from the rest It’s about putting the rest in its own place in order to focus on the primary user
- Students don’t want the burden of figuring out which content is for them Primary doesn’t mean “mostly” Other users understand and support this (more on that later)
- You have a precious few seconds to capture their attention If you immediately convey these four points (through context), that time window will increase dramatically If you only take away one thing today, this would be the one
- Article determined that prospective students should be the focus, but self-promotion is the reality “[Only] 34% of the links on the home pages dealt with student needs”
- Why do you think I needed AAA? My car broke down, just like the guy in the picture They seem to know who I am and why I’m here So why WOULDN’T they help me?!?
- People are reluctant to self-identify, but I had to
- Now that I’ve told them who I am, their content suggests that they don’t know what to do about it If I’m on the side of the road, I’m using the mobile view, which isn’t any better
- Hmm… this page says it’s under 24-hour roadside assistance; so where is the help?
- Oh, I had to log-in (still have to tell them who I am) But the content is the same, and still not for me or my situation
- AFTER scrolling down, I finally find the help I need – under QUICK links?!? OK but if they say their service will be QUICK, forget it, because we have very different definitions for the word “quick”
- When it comes to higher ed, this type of experience causes people to give up This content marketing firm reported that “One out of five students removed a university from consideration after a bad experience with the school’s website.” (2011 E-Expectations Report sponsored by Noel-Levitz and the National Research Center for College and University Admissions; Zinch, 2012; UMass Dartmouth, BestCollegesOnline.com.) They didn’t give up on the website; they gave up on the institution itself!
- Referencing a Noel-Levitz survey (2007), the article reported that one in four students reported “removing a school from their prospective list because of a bad experience on that school’s Web site” and referencing a follow-up survey (Noel-Levitz 2010), the article reported that “92% said they would be disappointed with a school or remove it from further consideration if they “didn’t find the information they needed on the school’s Web site”
- Challenging conventional thinking… Vision and purpose define your objectives Objectives define your target users Users need to become your team mate in fulfilling them
- Vision and purpose: What are we all about? Objectives: Why do we have a website? (What will result?) Users: Who do we need to team up with to make this happen?
- Your plan connects your vision with the way you serve it to your users Branding: Students connect with those who exhibit what they value and respect Marketing: Exhibit it through context, but don’t BE it (“That’s just marketing”) Positioning: How are you positioned to address their needs and opportunities? Messaging: What will they infer about your institution, people, and website?
- Positioning is often overlooked, but critical Philip Morgan specializes in positioning for IT professionals, but his philosophy rings true… Positioning: know who you serve, what you have to offer them, what qualifies you to do so, and what makes you better than the alternatives
- You’ve probably heard for Kristina, who “wrote the book” on content strategy In an interview with the Content Marketing Institute, it’s her plain talk about content strategy that we need to keep in mind… “HOW will you use content to align your vision with the needs of your users?“ Content strategy is where this happens
- Launch is not the finish line; it’s just one big step in an ongoing process We need to put the right people in place and give them the authority and the standards to protect our investments
- Put your constituents on the team in order to leverage their experience and also give them a vested interest in the outcomes Share progress with the community such that they understand why you’re doing this Thereby elevate content strategy to a cultural level, not just somebody’s job Executive sponsorship (/buy-in) for the authority you need to stay the course
- Upfront: Baseline testing / focus groups will give you a standard against which to measure your improvement In-process and post-launch testing (agile, iterative) Pre-launch: Will you REALLY have time to make the changes you uncover? Pre-launch testing should just be the latest in-process testing Representation on the web team Invite feedback and commentary on the website itself
- Challenging conventional thinking… Your users’ habits may change before you finish your redevelopment project Begin student testing early in the process, keep it going after launch Maintain = stay the same (must evolve to keep up with student expectations) Don’t rely on BEST practices – what’s right for our users, our situation? Still? (keep revisiting)
- Back to one of our key questions, here are a few things to keep in mind about your key target users (prospective students)…
- I don’t mean to say the whole industry is wrong here, we all say “audience,” but… You don’t really have an audience If you earn their interest and trust, you will have USERS – people who use (interact with) your content in order to get things done CAN ANYBODY TELL ME why we shouldn’t think of our users as an audience?… They’re not PASSIVE They’re not INVESTED (didn’t pay for a ticket) and will leave at any time They’re not looking to be ENTERTAINED And IF they stay to the end, they’re certainly not going to APPLAUD!
- CAN ANYBODY TELL ME why we need to be reminded of this? Because we tend to write as if our reader will hang onto every word That’s like writing for mom…
- I’m often invited to attend a career day at colleges and high schools When the kids ask me what’s the most important thing about what I do, I say “Being able to think from someone else’s perspective” It’s harder than you’d think, and it’s the essence of user-centered thinking
- My wife and I were preparing snacks before watching a movie one night She was spreading the cheese all the way to the outside of the crackers I was plopping a blob in the middle We questioned and teased each other, and finally agreed to disagree
- Then when we started eating, she went “nibble nibble nibble” and I went “GULP” And we looked at each other and said “Ahhhhhhh!”
- We’re mainly talking about millennials, here…
- A presentation by Cornell’s Ashley Hennigan cited an important Time article that pointed out what we all think of in relation to prospective students When I ask my clients, they say “yeah, that pretty much says it” When I ask the STUDENTS, they say… “yeah, that pretty much says it” (60% believe that they will be able to “feel what is right”) But the article also points out the positive, constructive attributes of millennials (They believe in the future and see themselves as its cutting edge) Jakob Nielson calls them the most educated generation to date (They “rarely blame themselves” when interfaces disappoint) When something has gone wrong in a user test, I find that the older participants say “OOPS, I did something wrong” or “I can’t find it” But the younger participants say “there’s something wrong with the site,” or “it’s not here” See my commentary on the Nielsen article at http://www.guestroom.com/tonyrose/nielsen-millenials/
- Wait, “the most educated generation to date”?!? “Informed” and “educated” are two different things Access to information is the new “knowledge” So in my mind, they’re really the most IMPATIENT generation to date
- We have to serve our key users without compromising our ability to interact with many other important user types
- Challenging conventional thinking… Remember Rob Humphrey’s talk on Monday morning? How he said his daughter was his favorite kid? Why did we laugh at that? No one wants to feel second best or feel that they are getting less than your full attention when you’re with them
- Different demographics, needs, habits, expectations, quirks, influences Different institutional relationships and objectives Different content, contributors Clearly labeled, easy-to-find destinations = “I don’t have to pick through someone else’s content” Navigation: anyone can find what they want Content area: focused on ME
- Resident content: Just for them (but not ALL of it) Guidance: Where to find other content that may interest you Feeds: Filtered news, events, etc. (When an alum goes to the news section, she has to look through it all, but on the alum page, it’s prioritized according to her interests)
- Jakob Nielsen points out the danger of using EXCLUSIVELY audience-based navigation Pointing out that it forces users to wonder which to choose, what to expect, and what they might be missing I would add that they kind of resent you deciding which content is for them, they hate to self-identify as a prerequisite to accessing content, AND they want to see everyone else’s content too (e.g. “For parents” vs. “Are you a parent?) Happy to “lurk” (“over-the-shoulder” user)
- Someone may be a different user type from one visit to the next Content is not about who they are, it’s about what they are trying to do – that has to be kept in mind e.g. recent alumni are put off when an ALUMNI link takes them directly to donor information (”I have enough trouble just making my student loan payments!”)
- A typical user menu (Cornell) Adding “for” says the destination content isn’t ABOUT these groups (e.g. graduate students are particularly interested in info about faculty) (Harford) Providing options in a dropdown or flyout menu (Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences) accomplishes the same thing while using up less space Can also be in a main menu Check out the great (eduWeb 2016) presentation about this project by Victoria Merriman of Digital Loom User selection can also be offered in the content area (Northampton) Once in a dedicated section (Penn, Tulsa), the navigation should be all about the selected user type Groups within the group can then be addressed according to their specific needs in the content area (Central Carolina)
- Challenging conventional thinking… If you populate your main home page content with whatever is new, that’s the impression they will get after a few seconds, and it may be the only impression they get It doesn’t have to be the ONLY content, it just has to be the main content
- When we reviewed these pages with students, this is what they took away
- Conversely, these sites position themselves by exhibiting specific attributes that set them apart… We will work with you... This is a great place to be... We know what we’re about...
- Taking in the first person (it’s all about us / we don’t need you) Structuring by org chart (you have to be one of us in order to find anything) Jargon/lingo – Geno’s steaks You can test this really easily: “what would you expect to find when you click on this term?”
- Starbucks “We pride ourselves…” – they’re both the subject and the object of the sentence!
- WHY do we try to simplify our websites? “It’s simple” = “I know what my options are” Why is Waldo so hard to find? Structure and present according to what students they are trying to accomplish Be their partner in fulfilling the tasks that brought them Lead to next steps and interactoin, not just user satisfaction (If you just provide information, you may never know who your most interested prospects are)
- How many things do we think are more important than an urgent message to our users? (Meanwhile, I’m spilling coffee in my lap, because it’s written around the bottom and I’m like…)
- How many things do we think are more important than an urgent message to our users? (Meanwhile, I’m spilling coffee in my lap, because it’s written around the bottom and I’m like…)
- Challenging conventional thinking… It’s natural to just organize everything we’ve got But you don’t really have to do all that work, because much or most of your content is extraneous…
- In our own survey (available until September, 2016 at dw.guestroom.com/what_are_students_looking_for), half said they wanted information, and they prioritized that information according to what helped them choose an institution Popular: Costs, academics/outcomes, scholarships, etc. Less interested in news, history, mission, etc.) Getting information is DOING something! (We know why you’re here)
- One client (George Mason University) found that students were having trouble identifying the right academic programs You know there’s a problem when Folklore studies is listed under B – the only way to find it is to read the whole list (but they’re not your mom, so…) And they don’t know the names of your individual schools
- Some people browse, some search, some follow their nose THEY MAY NOT KNOW what they want/need to study!!! But they know what they want to accomplish (or the job they want) George Mason attracts students who want to make a difference in the world, so their new site guides them accordingly, linking to destinations that outline their various options, including inter-departmental combinations
- Challenging conventional thinking…
- “No, just the pages needed for the new architecture” Finished site: <2,000 pages (2% of original volume)
- Choose content because… It’s consistent with our plan It serves our users toward our institutional objectives It’s been validated by our users It supports our objectives and branding It leads to positive action/interaction
- What these have in common: NOT part of the plan, NOT validated “People want it” (because…?) “It’s important” (to whom?)
- Higher authority: users (testing), standards, AND all the people who support you because you kept them in the process (constituents, campus community, execs) Share the responsibility: NEVER let it be “just between you and me” A single person can destroy a website (it might even be you) You MUST have an oversight team whose job it is to protect your investment by staying the course and adjusting with intelligence, not guesswork
- Here’s what you can specifically say when people ask for exceptions to your content plan: We have to stick to the plan (which you approved) in order to properly assess its effectiveness Remember why we had to redo our website? This is it! Our old habits will take us right back where we came from We do have a better place for this content (maybe)
- Emphasize the new culture – everything has a basis in strategy and validation When we find the need to change, based on analysis and testing, we modify our standards accordingly Your idea might just be as awesome as you say… we’ll find out
- Brave volunteers – let’s look at your website and assess their focus on prospective students