Case Study: Finance Division
Finance Division
The goal of this project was to redesign the Finance division Web site to transition the site from a departmental, organization-oriented approach to a service and customer-focused perspective. The previous Web site had been built over a number of years and needed a better framework for the delivery of services.
“Initially, Finance’s Web presence consisted of a number of sites without a consistent look and feel. They also lacked a common navigation to link them together,” said Wendy Dascoli, Web Services manager. “Our job was not to redesign a single Web site, but to re-conceive and re-architect a Web presence for the division and its many departments and functional units.”
The project was the largest undertaken by ITS Web Services to date.
“We decided to use ITS Web Services because we reviewed their work, found it impressive and we wanted to get the project moving quickly,” said Roger Patterson, associate vice chancellor for Finance.
First, Web Services created an initial “sitemap” diagram and content inventory to discover the scope of the project and conducted user interviews to obtain real user data and feedback.
Then, the project entered the design and development phase, which included moving the majority of the site into Joomla!, a content management system (CMS). The move into a CMS gave the new site a consistent and unified look and clear site ownership by designated staff.
“ITS Web Services suggested ideas that we hadn’t even considered. It was a learning experience, and ITS Web Services was patient and understanding,” said Patterson.
Search engine optimization (SEO) was another important element of the redesign that improved the search ranking of Finance-related keywords, such as ‘tuition.’
In addition to the design and development work, consulting, training and documentation development were major components of the project.
“Building a Web site is like building a house,” said Patterson. “It’s rare to come in on time and under budget, but we did. And the Web site was created in a way that it can continue to evolve.”
And how has the redesigned Web site been received?
“I have received very positive feedback,” said Patterson. “Colleagues from other Universities have been impressed as well. I think we made the right decision to go with ITS Web Services.”
