Columbia University Main Homepage
We redesigned and assessed the Columbia University website's main homepage.
At the time, Columbia's homepage, www.columbia.edu, hadn't been redesigned in over six years, and the last redesign had been more of a refresher that added a number of enhancements. The existing website had an outdated aesthetic, lack of functionality and was not mobile friendly.
As Columbia University is a large research university, its main website has an extraordinary diversity of users both inside and outside the institution, from teenage prospective students to the oldest alumni and retired faculty. Homepages are not only internal tools used by students, faculty and staff, but also function externally as the university's main public presence in the world.
It was clear Columbia's main homepage deserved a full redesign to strike a balance between continuity, modernity, utility and messaging.
To get from the old website design (above) to the updated website design, we researched and identified stakeholders and audiences, holding constant consultation and user testing. We also ran design-thinking workshops and conducted interviews.
We found, through extensive qualitative and quantitative data gathered via our consultation and other methods, that the homepage needed to be more responsive, easily maintained, include timely content changes and be easier to use.
In other words, we needed to improve user satisfaction, ease of management and outward reputation.
The Result?
An uncluttered, modern design reflecting Columbia's academic and research excellence, with simplified navigation, fully responsive and accessible design and real-time updates.
