Background
We were happy to receive a brief from Brasenose College in Oxford. Founded in 1509, the college has a rich and interesting history with a strong academic reputation. They are well known as an approachable and friendly College and their name comes from their historic door knocker (brasen nose). Based in the centre of Oxford on Brasenose Lane, nestled next to the Radcliffe Camera and Bodleian Library, this is a college which deserved the very best website available to them.
Brasenose asked us to design and develop a new website that communicates their core mission, demonstrates their impact and engages with their key audiences. They asked us to create a website that acts as a central source of information for people outside of the college who are interested in applying to be a student or for a job, looking for events, making a donation or engaging as an alumnus.
Getting started
To kick things off, it was important to talk. We organised a number of face to face conversations with the Head of IT at the college. This gave us a deep insight into the challenges they were facing with the current website and a clear brief as to what they wanted from their new site.
Next, it was time to meet and interview representatives from the full range of stakeholders. This is an important early step in our process. We organised interviews with the outreach team, college office, principal, welfare team, chapel team, choir, development office, library and conferences team. We ran relaxed interview sessions with each team, with questions tailored to get the most out of each person/team. Most of the interviews were undertaken in person at the college with some undertaken virtually.
Throughout the project, we kept our main client and the project manager - the Head of IT involved with a weekly meeting. Alongside this, we worked with an external consultant that the college had employed to help organise, write and load content.
We engaged the various stakeholders by attending several Website Steering Committee meetings, Governing Body meetings and through Sharing Sessions which was particularly required around the design process. There were differing opinions and needs from a design perspective. Some stakeholders wanted something more traditional, others more contemporary. We worked through several designs, presenting to key groups, looping feedback into revised designs and using our experience to create a final design which perfectly married traditional, contemporary, striking and friendly. We integrated tailored components for specific areas of the site to meet the needs of objectives, all whilst remaining aligned with the overall tone of the site.
Solving pain points
Throughout the development process, we kept the pain points of the existing site at the forefront of our minds:
- Lost Identity – the existing website didn’t reflect who Brasenose were anymore
- Weak Proposition – the existing content no longer told the correct story
- Disengaging Experience – the website had become a dumping ground for information.
Audiences
The new website needed to serve information across 8 different audience segments:
- Educational Partners: particularly schools, FE colleges and other educational organisations interested in collaborating with Brasenose.
- Academic Staff: future academic personnel with the potential to enhance the academic capital of Brasenose
- Prospective support staff: future support personnel with the potential to enhance the student and academic experience at Brasenose.
- Former students and staff (the “Alumni”): individuals looking to maintain their connection with the college through news and events or supporting the college as volunteers or with donations.
- Existing and prospective donors and supporters (private and public): individuals and institutions interested in financially supporting Brasenose activities.
- Prospective conference and events clients: individuals and organisations interested in hiring facilities at the college.
- Media: journalists finding out more about Brasenose in relation to a story
- Members of the Public or anyone wanting to find out more about the college: what they do, history, buildings etc.
The outcome
This project was a delight to work on. The main challenge came with creating a design to meet the needs and expectations and different opinions of the large range of different stakeholders. Our established process enabled us to arrive at a design which met those needs and is simple, clean and showcases the engaging story that Brasenose want to tell through a range of different content pieces.
Brasenose were happy with the final website, technically it is built to last for the long term, strategically it will help them to meet their objectives and aesthetically, it reflects who the college are today and for the future.