College of Southern Maryland
A responsive website redesign to serve as a marketing platform for prospective students and increase enrollment.
Role
UX Design Lead
Year
2023
Client
CSMD
Project Overview
College of Southern Maryland is a community college in La Plata, Maryland, serving approximately 14,184 students through online and in-person classes. The website supports multiple audiences: prospective students, current students, international students, faculty/staff, parents, and alumni. However, it was failing to effectively serve any of them.
The Problem
After ongoing negative feedback, CSM's web team determined the site needed a complete overhaul. Navigation chaos (three separate navigation bars), poor search, minimal campus photography, buried pathways to majors and financial aid, and a design prioritizing current students over prospective ones created a confusing, ineffective experience.
The Goal
Transform the website from a student portal into a powerful marketing platform that guides prospective students through their decision journey, from discovering CSM to submitting applications. The redesign needed to prioritize enrollment growth while maintaining efficient pathways for current students and faculty to access internal systems and campus information.
My Role
I led UX research, strategy, and design for this project. I conducted stakeholder interviews, analyzed user research, developed information architecture, created wireframes, and designed the final visual experience, taking the project from discovery through developer handoff.
Discovery & Research
I gathered insights through stakeholder interviews with high-level college leadership (Web Services, Marketing, Admissions, Academic Operations, Registrar, VP of Academic Affairs), user surveys with prospective students, current students, alumni and parents, and heatmap analysis revealing that most users immediately skipped homepage content to click the "myCMD" internal portal link.
Key Insights
Research revealed the homepage messaging didn't reflect the brand or tell a compelling student journey story. Photography failed to show campus life. Cost and financial aid information was buried. The three competing navigation systems created confusion. Search functionality was broken. Mobile text was unreadable.
I identified two primary user groups with distinct needs: Prospective students needed to discover programs, envision campus life, understand costs, and find application pathways. Current students and faculty needed quick access to internal systems and campus events without fighting through marketing content.
Information Architecture & Wireframes
Working with the content strategist, I restructured the sitemap to eliminate navigation redundancy and create clear paths from awareness to application. I wireframed a "student's path" homepage narrative: large video showcase of campus life, quick college introduction, pathway exploration for different programs, student life sections, and alumni testimonials demonstrating outcomes.
The navigation condensed into a single modern mobile-style menu, drastically reducing clutter while keeping "myCMD" easily accessible for internal audiences.
Design Solutions
Visual Design Direction
Working with limited brand materials, I created a cohesive visual system by extracting underutilized brand elements, incorporating authentic campus photography, establishing clear typographic hierarchy, and applying "less is more" principles to reduce cognitive load.
The Student Journey Homepage
The redesigned homepage transformed from an information repository into a narrative experience. A large hero video immediately immersed visitors in campus life. Clear value proposition messaging communicated CSM's positioning. Prominent program pathways made exploration intuitive. Student life sections with authentic photography helped prospects envision their experience. Alumni testimonials provided social proof and demonstrated success.
Streamlined Navigation & Accessibility
I replaced three competing navigation bars with a single, logical system. Text sizing, color contrast, and responsive layouts were optimized for readability across devices, addressing major pain points from research.
Impact & Reflection
The redesigned website successfully transformed CSM's digital presence from a confusing student portal into an effective marketing platform. Post-launch, CSM reported increased homepage engagement from prospective students navigating deeper into the site to learn about programs and campus life. The streamlined navigation reduced user confusion, making information discovery intuitive.
The project earned a Silver Education Digital Marketing Award.
This project reinforced the importance of designing for multiple audiences simultaneously without compromising the primary goal. The challenge was creating a marketing-focused experience for prospective students without alienating current students who used the site daily.
I learned to think beyond limited brand guidelines by finding underutilized elements and repurposing them into cohesive, modern systems. Most importantly, this demonstrated that simplification isn't about removing features. It's about creating clear hierarchy and intentional flows that make complex information accessible.
