01
The challenge
The client arranges study abroad programmes for US university students, in destinations across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific. It had just been acquired by a larger education company, and its website, built on ageing in-house technology, had fallen behind its competitors.
Before redesigning anything, the client asked for a discovery phase: understand the business and the people the site serves, find out what was going wrong, and recommend what to change. My manager looked after client calls; I planned and carried out the research and wrote up every report.
How might we help first-time students and worried parents choose a programme with confidence, while giving advisors the quick answers they need?
Context for UK readers
In the US, many students study abroad through an outside provider like this one, often chosen with help from their university's study abroad office. A provider's website has to inspire students, reassure parents and serve advisors who recommend programmes year after year.
02
How we approached it
I worked from the inside out: first the people who run the business, then the website itself, then the competition.
Method 1
Stakeholder interviews
21 staff from 11 teams, from marketing and finance to academic affairs and university relations. Eight days, mostly remote and recorded.
Method 2
Executive survey
Written questions for leaders on what makes the company different, where its service starts and ends, and how much it could grow.
Method 3
Heuristic evaluation
An expert review of navigation, content, presentation and features against usability principles, alongside the site's Google Analytics.
Method 4
Competitor review
A side-by-side look at the two rivals the client named, plus best-practice examples from other sites.
03
What staff told us
During the interviews, staff also rated the website out of 10. It scored 5.3 overall, and the lowest scores were about showing what makes the company special and keeping the site up to date.
Ease of publishing and managing content
Showing the company's culture and personality
Engagement and appeal
Ease of navigation
Three themes from the interviews
A new generation
Gen Z students look for and choose information differently from their Millennial and Gen X parents and advisors.
Tools holding teams back
Custom-built systems made the site slow and costly to update, and some tasks, like scholarship applications, were still handled by hand.
Strengths kept quiet
Leaders named health and safety support and their on-site staff as the company's biggest strengths, but the website barely showed either.
04
Who the site serves
The site has to work for two very different groups. Students and parents are usually first-timers, often anxious, and use the service once. Advisors and faculty are experienced professionals who come back year after year and want specific answers fast.
First-timers
Students
What they ask
- Will my credits transfer?
- Do I need to speak the language?
- When will I get housing details?
- Which scholarships can I apply for?
First-timers
Parents
What they ask
- Can we use financial aid?
- How do payment plans work?
- What does the insurance cover?
- What happens in an emergency?
Professionals
Advisors and faculty
What they look for
- Deadlines and eligibility
- Health and safety updates
- Invoices and estimated costs
- Programmes that match their courses
Social
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram
Campaigns
Search, newsletter
Microsites
Internships, service learning, custom programmes
05
What we found
The site review backed up what staff told us, and showed where people were most likely to give up.
Easy to get lost
Competing menus, page layouts that kept changing, and no breadcrumbs to show where you were.
The main task was buried
Programme search competed with many equally weighted buttons, and moved between the homepage and inner pages.
Walls of text
Long paragraphs, very few photos of students abroad, and useful blog and student stories hidden away.
Not built for phones
The site didn't adapt to smaller screens, a problem for students who browse mostly on their phones.
One size for everyone
Students, parents and advisors all saw the same content, with no way to narrow it to what they needed.
Hard to keep up to date
Too many page types and lots of duplicate content, with no clear structure behind it, so publishing was slow.
Key insight
A fresh coat of paint wouldn't be enough. The deeper problems were structure and content.
So my recommendations start with how the site is organised and what it says, and only then with how it looks.
06
Learning from competitors
Compared with its two main rivals, the client sat in the middle of the pack. Each competitor did something well that was worth learning from.
Competitor A
Does well
Finding a programme is easy, with filters, side-by-side comparison and one clear call to action.
Watch out for
So polished it felt corporate, more like a lifestyle brand than a place to get help.
Competitor B
Does well
Menus by audience and by topic, the study abroad process broken into simple steps, and real team photos and testimonials that build trust.
Watch out for
Text over busy background photos was sometimes hard to read.
07
Recommendations
I turned the findings into six recommendations for the design and development teams, starting with what would help visitors most.
1
Simpler navigation
Fewer, grouped menu items that stay the same on every page, plus breadcrumbs.
2
Put programme search first
One clear call to action, with filters and a way to compare programmes.
3
A path for each audience
Let visitors say whether they're a student, parent or advisor, and tailor what they see.
4
Show, don't tell
Shorter, scannable content, photos of students abroad, and testimonials and safety facts to reassure parents.
5
Works on any device
A responsive site, so students can browse comfortably on their phones.
6
Easier for staff
A clear content structure and a system non-technical staff can publish with.
08
Reflection
Talking to 21 people across one business showed me that every team sees the same website differently, and that listening to them matters as much as auditing pages.
It also taught me the value of discovery. The most useful thing I delivered wasn't a new look, but a clear, shared picture of the problem that everyone could agree on before design began.