WRAC Redesign

Overview

The Michigan State University Department of Writing Rhetorics and American Cultures contracted The Cube at MSU in Spring 2022 to manage all communication campaigns. Over the course of the last five years, enrollment in WRAC undergraduate programs has decreased especially in the Professional and Public writing major. With the ultimate goal of boosting enrollment in WRAC programs, our team is conducting a full website redesign with a heavy focus on restructuring the content to fit the student audience.

My Role

Understanding The Problem

I and my teammate began our process by conducting an audit of the existing WRAC website and social media. From the audit, we learned that one of the primary issues is that the WRAC department as a whole is overlooked. Many undergraduates who want to write in their profession are gravitating more towards degrees in communications or English. Once students find—often stumble into—the WRAC undergraduate majors, many stay and enjoy what they are studying. Getting students to know that the P2W major and the writing minor exist is the key.

Additionally, and more specifically to the website, we found that the most viewed information is buried. From the analytics of the website, we found that the pages that get the most views are the “First-year writing placement and exams” and the pages within the Graduate section indicating that the undergraduate section as a whole is largely overlooked.

To better inform the design process, I designed and conducted a cart sort of the existing website. Also aligning with our audit findings, the card sort results are quite inconclusive largely because there is so much content on the site that doesn’t need to be there, is duplicated, or the name of the page is confusing. This allowed us to look critically at the content and prioritize the most important information and cut the less necessary information from the site.

Design

Since WRAC is a department within MSU, our design has to align with the MSU Brand Guidelines. Instead of the standard MSU spartan logo, we found a logo that was used heavily throughout the College of Arts and Letters and many WRAC deliverables and social media throughout the mid-2010s and we loved it. It’s demonstrates the creativity and flexibility of the department while still adhering to guidelines. We are using this logo throughout the website and it is now being used throughout other deliverables and the current social media again so that the WRAC branding is consistent.

When I started the wireframes for the WRAC redesign, I didn’t immediately know which direction to go in since much of our initial research was around content strategy, information design, and information architecture. I decided to look at other MSU websites for inspiration because while we want the WRAC site to be original, we also wanted it to be consistent with other MSU websites. Taking inspiration from the XA, Art, Art History, and Design, and English websites I sketched out my ideas and then started playing in Adobe XD.

After getting initial feedback from faculty within the WRAC department, I was given access to the development space of the WRAC website.

Delivery

While this project is still ongoing, I have made excellent progress in making edits to half of the website.

Obstacles

There are a variety of audiences for this website. We need to target current and prospective students, graduate students, parents, faculty, and MSU stakeholders. That being said, all of the faculty who teach in the different areas within the department have different ideas and different understandings of the goals of the website and how to accomplish those goals. There is a disconnect between what the faculty members find to be the most important information versus what the analytics tell us. 

We have had multiple meetings with different people within the departments to present our findings to encourage them to adopt the revised content.

Additionally, there are ongoing bureaucratic issues with where the WRAC department is housed and because it’s not housed within the department of Communication Arts and Sciences, we aren’t allowed to use certain verbiage, for example, Communication Arts owns the word “user.” 

At each stage of this project, we are running into obstacles in getting answers. There are multiple different points of contact who have different answers and information and it’s difficult to get the information quickly. To guarantee consistency we are clarifying and confirming information over and over again.

Reflection

This project is still ongoing and so far I am proud of how it’s coming out. This is the largest project I’ve worked on up to this point and I am the only person building the site it’s a phenomenal learning opportunity. Since I’m largely in technology or design courses, I haven’t worked consistently with communication strategies or the content side of projects and I learn something new every time our team meets.

Many of the projects that come into The Cube’s hands are smaller non-profit organizations that need a full communication and branding strategy, a website, and training on how to maintain the website. This project is for a well-established university with clear standards to adhere to and design within. It’s an excellent introduction to working for larger organizations and larger projects.

Futures

The site is set to launch by the end of March. While I build the site, the team is working on boosting social media presence and student engagement on campus. With our efforts, we hope to boost enrollment in WRAC programs.