Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
Since 1908, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) in Tifton, GA, has been recognized in the Southeast as a leading school for agricultural education and research.
With a highly-regarded set of agricultural programs, the school has a vital role in supporting Georgia’s largest industry and advancing the science of farming. Its programs in other areas, including business, nursing, history, criminal justice, education, music, communication, and community development provide opportunities for students across South Georgia.
The Need
Nearly every higher education website in the world suffers from size creep. Colleges and universities undergo continual change, and edits are often made hastily without concern for consistency or brevity. Over time, sites become bloated, hard to navigate, and inconsistent.
ABAC’s site, while effective, had become disorganized and inconsistent. It relied heavily on PDFs to deliver important content – another common practice in higher ed – which made information harder to access and caused their SEO performance to suffer. Information was presented in different formats depending on where one was on the site, and the navigation strategy was based on the institution’s org chart, not user experience best practices.
Our Solutions
Focus Groups Dive Deep Into What ABAC Needed
Before we could begin creating a new experience for ABAC’s site users, we needed to know what those users needed. We organized and moderated several focus groups with members of the ABAC community. Each group contained one specific audience: prospective students, current students, faculty and staff members, campus leadership, and ABAC’s fundraising arm, the ABAC Foundation.
In our focus groups, we encouraged open and frank conversations about ways the college’s website wasn’t serving the community well and ideas for its improvement. Through careful listening to running themes in participants’ comments, we were able to identify the main areas for improvement for the site:
Simplifying a Site for Success
We began by simplifying ABAC’s sitemap. Our SEO-focused copywriting team dug into the institution’s existing site and identified duplicated information, unused pages, and overly complex navigation.
In some cases, pages were combined to place all of the information relevant to a particular program or process together in one place. In others, pages that duplicated information that was available elsewhere on the site were removed. Across the entire site, we looked at every menu structure and navigation touchpoint to ensure that users can easily understand complex processes like applying for admission and getting started as new students.
Highlighting Desirable Degrees
One significant change involved how the site promoted the school’s diverse degree programs. Prior to our involvement, each academic subunit handled its programs’ web presence differently. This inconsistency led to a site containing outdated information and user confusion; it also hindered the school’s visibility in high-value searches.
To combat this—and to lift the visibility of every program—we developed a template for degree-specific pages used consistently across the site. Each page includes an overview of the course of study, elective options, and potential career paths stemming from the degree.
Today, a user is never more than only two clicks away from a detailed page containing all the pertinent information a current or future student might need for their specific program or interest.
Delivering an Audience-Driven Experience
All college and university sites have a wide array of audiences, but they nearly all have five main audiences in mind:
- Potential students deciding on a college
- Parents/families of potential students
- Current students needing information about their courses, the campus, or other aspects of their college experience
- Current employees needing information relevant to their position on campus
- Potential donors who could become financial supporters of the school’s programming
ABAC’s website was doing a better job than many of providing a student-focused experience, but there was room for improvement.
Combining our takeaways from our discovery process with our own experience in developing websites for higher education, we were able to create a UX built around the way prospects, students, employees, donors, and other stakeholders actually search, read, and use a college website.
Creating One Look for One University
While ABAC is primarily recognized for its agricultural programs, the institution also offers degrees in other workforce-critical fields, including business and healthcare.
Our designers developed a new look for the site, one focusing on a single, unified brand style. The new style carries across the entire site – creating consistency – while allowing each unit with the flexibility to manage their own web presence.
By reinforcing that ABAC is one institution with many varied offerings, we showcase that students searching for a future in fields both inside and outside of agriculture can expect an exceptional experience at the South Georgia school.
Partnering with Higher Education Since 2008
At M&R, we are proud to have partnered with multiple universities and technical colleges for website development and marketing campaign creation, including Oconee Fall Line Technical College, Wesleyan College, Mercer University, and Middle Georgia State University.
