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West Point Military Academy Case Study

With a rich history dating back to the founding of the country, the West Point Military Academy is one of America's oldest brand names. While the brand has stood the test of time, the digital landscape of higher education has become increasingly competitive. This project involved extensive market research, which included SEO, competitive analysis, and research on customers, users, and employees. Usability studies and heuristic evaluations were conducted, along with information and content planning. All of this led to a redesign effort that included a component library and design system, as well as a comprehensive measurement strategy.

The Proposal:

The West Point Academy website had become outdated and was no longer competitive with other institutions of higher learning.

Challenge:

The West Point Academy website facilitated multiple overlapping customer, employee, and student end-users, stretching and bloating the user interface to the breaking point.

Key Objectives:

To revitalize the user interface and establish a competitive visual experience that allowed for easier access to information about the school, its missions, and its’ services.

Solution:

To conduct a series experience strategy initiatives encompassing a host of activities designed to help better understand customer, student, and employee needs, pain points, behaviors, and desires, while also establishing a repeatable measurement framework for adoption and customer satisfaction, While concurrently using the research to redesign the entire website.

My Role:

Associate Director of Experience Strategy

Process Used to Establish Deliverables:

Human-centered Design (HCD)

Understand:

  • Conducted a competitive analysis entailing keywords, brand identity, and institutional services.
  • Created survey questions based on stakeholder feedback and business objectives.
  • Initialized the Survey
  • Heuristic and Usability study of the West Point pages.
  • Conducted a Content Audit
  • Metrics and Analytics Report on monthly traffic.

Ideate:

  • Created various UI Wireframes and Prototypes of key pages connected to business goals.
  • Open and Closed Card Sort to establish an understanding of new information architectures.

Validate:

  • Synthesized survey results into prioritized features and functionality.
  • Prioritized features and functionality into release cycles.

Build:

  • Created final Design Mockups based on prioritized features and functionality.
  • Presented final Research and Design documentation to West Point’s senior leadership.
  • Created a Design System of modular components for the development team.




Outcomes:

The West Point Academy website redesign offered a new and exciting experience for potential customer, current students, and staff, while also giving the content and development teams easy, accessible, and scalable component architectures that were tuned for successful adoption.

Impact:

The West Point Academy website, serviced approximately 100k to 200k monthly visitors, and the services and satisfaction survey had a response rate of 85%. The development and content teams using the design system created were able to build the West Point pages in under two months.