How the re-design of the key programme pages resulted in a 25% surge in MSc brochure requests, generating 2.1K new leads.
Reimagining Imperial's Programmes: A Business School Transformed
About
Problem
Imperial College Business School, consistently ranked among the world's top institutions, sought to revamp its digital presence. The mission? To boost applications to their prestigious MBA, MSc, Undergraduate, and PhD programmes by redesigning key pages and enhancing user journeys.
The existing website pages were static and inflexible, with competing CTAs that were impacting conversions. It lacked the dynamic elements seen on competitor sites and hid crucial information in sub-pages and accordions. The three-column layout was restrictive, and the site failed to effectively showcase Imperial's rankings and prestige.
Solution
We crafted a suite of flexible components for a custom page builder, creating full-width pages with floating menus and tabbed functionality. This new design improved navigation, highlighted key information, and added the 'wow factor' missing from the outdated programmes pages.
Process
03
Iterative prototyping & testing
We developed three versions of lo-fi prototypes, refining the user experience based on feedback. These prototypes explored various features such as testimonials, sub-navigation, and full-width page layouts. Each iteration was tested with users and stakeholders, allowing us to fine-tune the design continuously.
04
Component design
Our design and dev teams collaborated together to create a flexible suite of components for a custom page builder. This collaboration ensured that the components were not only visually appealing and on-brand but also technically feasible within the existing Drupal environment.
01
Benchmark data
We established clear KPIs for metrics like brochure requests and applications. Using Google Analytics, we analysed user behaviour patterns. Hotjar heatmaps provided visual insights into user interactions. We also benchmarked Imperial against competitor business schools to identify areas for improvement and innovation.
02
User research
We distributed screener surveys to identify distinct audience groups. Following this, we conducted in-depth 1:1 research sessions with 2-3 users from each group. These sessions focused on understanding user goals, pain points, and their journey towards applying for a programme.
01
Benchmarking
Baseline metrics tracked
Monthly total users
Average session duration
% Desktop % Mobile
Avg. Engagement Rate
Avg. Bounce Rate
% Organic Traffic
Detailed & specific metrics
Page speed insights
How users access content
Events in Google Analytics; apply, brochure requests
Sub-page user journeys in Hotjar and GA
Challenges
Integrating new design with existing infrastructure: As the redesign was initially rolled out to only part of the website, we faced the challenge of ensuring the new design seamlessly integrated with the existing site structure. This required careful consideration of user journeys across both new and old sections of the site, maintaining brand consistency while showcasing the improvements
Balancing innovation with familiarity: We needed to strike a delicate balance between introducing dynamic design elements to stand out from other business schools whilst maintaining enough familiarity for existing users. This required careful user testing and iterative design to ensure we were enhancing, not disrupting the user experience.
Impact
This 13-month project transformed Imperial's digital presence, focusing on data-driven design and user-centric solutions to boost leads and applications. The result? A website that not only looks great but delivered tangible results for this world-class institution.
The redesign led to increased leads, more flexible pages, improved information accessibility, and a visually appealing site that showcases Imperial's brand and rankings effectively.
02
User Research
Themes from research and testing
We recruited prospective students to help test and provide feedback on the current experience. Using data from our stakeholder research, benchmarking and hypothesis in our research plan we put together some questions to help us understand user needs better.
These findings were categorised in a user story format to help provide guidance for the next phase and inform the prototyping. Using tools like Dovetail and Miro allow us to show stakeholders snippets from conversations.
03
Prototyping
Iteration and refinement
These images illustrate the design evolution of the MBA and MSc programme pages. We developed three wireframe iterations, focusing on layout improvements for programme content. Subsequently, we created three visual design variations, refining content hierarchy and incorporating impactful statistics and components to highlight Imperial's reputation.
+320%
Increase in event count for apply now CTA clicks
+20%
Increase in brochure requests across MBA & MSc
+31%
Leap in monthly users, with over 100k total users
-35%
Decrease in bounce rate on Masters' pages
64%
Average engagement rate across all programme pages
3.5k
New leads generated for MBA & MSc programmes
CLIENT FEEDBACK
“We were very satisfied with the outcome. The team worked hard to deliver the projects’ objectives to challenging timescales, and were accommodating to making adjustments based on our feedback. This collaborative approach helped ensure the design and development phases were aligned to our vision and delivered considerable improvements to the user journey on these pages.”
Head of Programmes Marketing at Imperial College Business School
Catherine
"Sophie took the time to really understand the strategic aims of what we're doing, why we're doing it and who it's for. This strategic underpinning is not only impressive, but it's one of the reasons she delivers such effective results.”
Growth Manager, Sandwell Business Growth
Nicy