Assignment 4 Question 3

3. Take a look at St. Clair Colleges website. In relation to visuals, what would you propose to St. Clair College to improve/enhance this new website to effectively market to potential incoming local domestic students. Please provide three (3) recommendations and justify your answer with detailed reasoning. (9 Marks)

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Recommendation One (Enhance Visual Accessibility and UX)

St. Clair should prioritize enhancing visuals on their website as it is highly cluttered and makes for an uninviting user experience. Using proper imagery and including more students on the home page would be a good start. It would cater to the diverse needs of the incoming local domestic students. With the website’s layout, St. Clair also has a section that locks the user into scrolling left or right, which feels wrong as users aren’t accustomed to this.

This section should be changed to accommodate the local domestic students and their parents. One option St. Clair could do is show scholarships and bursaries on this and make it static so new students can easily access them without going through a bunch of pages to get there.

Recommendation Two (Clear Visualized Academic Programs and Pathways)

To help incoming local domestic students explore their academic interests and career options, St. Clair College can visually represent their programs and career pathways on its website. This would almost be like an open house but online and just for the programs; instead of going on campus, the potential students could see the overview of their program and past student success stories. It would help them see if the program is right for them and take out the guesswork. A local student could see a timeline of sorts of typical career pathways in a visualized form. Visualizing this pathway and programs will make it easier for students to understand the education journey they would need to take and help align their future goals with their careers. Additionally, as stated earlier, St. Clair College can incorporate testimonials and past success stories from alumni who have pursued similar academic paths and provide incoming students with real-world insights and inspiration.  

Recommendation Three (Adding Social Media Feeds and User-Generated Content)

St. Clair College can integrate social media feeds and user-generated content into the homepage of its website to create a dynamic and engaging UX for potential incoming local domestic students. St. Clair can make their site more geared towards incoming students by featuring visually appealing posts and helpful information from the college’s official social media channels. Using the user-generated content from faculty and alumni, the website can also provide authentic glimpses into campus life, events that are happening, and student accomplishments all in real-time; this will also save St. Clair time and money as it will be automated and won’t need to be check unless doing quality control. This interactive approach showcases a more vibrant side to St. Clair and encourages prospective students to connect with the college and the surrounding community. Using user-generated content also fosters a sense of belonging and inclusivity, which the page is lacking.

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