Confederation College has been serving the citizens of Northwestern Ontario Canada since 1967 meeting the educational needs of students in a catchment area of some 550,000 square kilometres. Confederation College delivers exceptional education and training to an average of 8,800 combined full and part-time students per year across over 60 post-secondary diploma and certificate programs.
Confederation College’s Department of Advancement and Communications requested a consistent design and unifying elements across the external facing website and the internal portal components. The visual framework and navigation strategy needed to put recruitment first, providing prospects with the quickest and most targeted information based on user behaviour while still maintaining access for all other audiences such as alumni, employers, community partners & media.
London Canada Drupal firm Digital Echidna partnered with London Canada design agency ResIM for this project. This joint bid brought together a unique combination of extensive post secondary education student recruitment experience and deep development resources and Drupal expertise that's among the best in the country.
The role of experience planning, information architecture design, concept design (wireframing), prototyping, usability testing, and overall project management was filled by ResIM resources. These resources were augmented by Digital Echidna as subcontracted by ResIM, to execute all Drupal theming, technical architecture, development, content governance, accessibility, and training deliverables required by this project.
Confederation College now considers the website their number one recruitment tool. The redesigned website advances recruitment efforts through the collection and intelligent use of prospect information (domestic & international) to move them from prospects to applicants to registered students and finally continues to engage them as active alumni. From an integration perspective the Confederation College project pulls program data from Banner and works with Talisma for CRM functions.