Sector(s)
Ashland University is a private institution founded in 1878. Ashland’s motto, “Accent on the Individual,” characterizes the university’s ongoing commitment to its students — both inside and outside the classroom.
Ashland needed a website that reflected the student experience. The approach was to design for the senses with sounds and textures, for a modern and conversion-oriented user experience. The final concept aligned the goals of the site with the larger vision of the university and its motto “Accent on the Individual”. Our team’s design leaned fully into this theme, ensuring clarity of message and helping the end users to truly see themselves living, and thriving, at the institution.
About the project
What they needed
Ashland’s website design hadn’t been updated in years. Siloed content and an unclear information architecture made it difficult for visitors to find the information they needed. The overall experience was also not reflective of the value the university places on its students.
The website needed a total transformation. This meant a migration from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9, an updated content strategy, and a complete visual redesign. As one of its primary marketing tools, Ashland wanted a digital property that reflected the true student experience in order to increase enrollment inquiries, applications, and acceptance of enrollment commitments.
How we helped
We delivered an end-to-end solution that started with a deep dive into Ashland’s goals and long-term vision, as well as its user’s needs. We worked closely with Ashland in focused discovery workshops to understand the organization and its goals, get to know the users of Ashland’s site, and establish meaningful metrics. By honing in on our relationship with Ashland and having an open and flexible communication style, we were able to lead with empathy and operate with a design thinking mindset.
We also created and tested several creative concepts. The final concept, “We See You,” aligned the goals of the website with the larger vision of the university. It also served as the guidepost for the design (visual and content) and development phases of the project.
View the ImageX Dribbble page for visual examples.
The Results
We were able to successfully tie every element of Ashland’s new experience to its overall business objectives. The result is a digital environment that is a true reflection of how Ashland wants to be viewed in the higher education market. Additionally, Ashland has benefited from:
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The comprehensive and collaborative approach offered by ImageX — from strategy to design to execution to post-launch support
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The expertise of ImageX regarding content best practices as well as efficiencies gained during the content process
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An ongoing partnership with ImageX that will extend the capacity of Ashland’s internal team and result in the continuous improvement of their digital environment
In terms of quantifiable results, post launch, Ashland saw:
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An increase in Organic search traffic of 230%
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An increase in Referral traffic of 282%
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Average engagement time per session increased by 8%
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Number of engaged sessions per user increased by 16%
I felt confident that (the new site) was really going to give prospective students more of an emotional connection to the university than our previous site ever did. It really went so smoothly and I was so relieved to get a quality result for our website.” - Karen Martin, Director of Marketing & Communications.
Read Ashland University's full independent review of working with ImageX.
Why Drupal was chosen
Ashland University chose Drupal due to having complex project requirements which other platforms were not able to meet. Drupal was seen as the best fit for the institution due to it's flexibility to enable integrations with a number of different platforms along with the ability to scale with the organization's long-term needs.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
