Higher education MGSM student website

Student timetable system design and build using an enterprise CMS 

Project overview

In 2015 David, the Manager of Student Services at MGSM, was responsible for a student unit directory tool that was built on out-dated technology, was difficult for the students to use and was time consuming to keep up-to-date. David engaged Polished Pixels to rebuild this unit directory tool using Squiz CMS. This case study walks you through the journey of rebuilding this online unit directory tool for MGSM Student Services. 

About MGSM Student Services

MGSM student services is responsible for supporting current students at MGSM. This includes supporting students through enrolment, unit selection, career guidance, internships and much more.

The quality of student support is critical to MGSM and in 2016, MGSM was once again ranked the number one School in Australia by the Financial Times world MBA ranking.

Goals

To:

  • make the unit directory tool more user-friendly for the MGSM students,
  • decrease support requests from students,
  • streamline the process of updating the unit directory. 

Challenge

The unit directory tool that students used regularly, was built inside a legacy database that was outdated, unsupported and could only be updated by one person via a spreadsheet.

Student found the tool confusing to use and only took advantage of the most basic features of the tool.  

Solution

Discovery and briefing phase

We met with the managers of the student services area of MGSM and we:

  • listened to the challenges and pain points of the current tool
  • reviewed and documented the content updating process.

Building the tool

We gathered statistics and interviewed students to establish the most common reasons for using the online directory. Based on this, we designed the new tool so that it would be intuitive to use for the students.

We then built the new tool within the existing CMS which consolidated the unit information into one central place.

When building the new online directory, we ensured that it would be easy and quick to update for the MGSM staff.

Project results

  • When looking at independent statistics (Google Analytics), we saw a marked improvement in all the key metrics:
    • a 122% increase in usage of the tool 
    • 15% increase in page views
    • 78% decrease in bounce rate
  • When comparing heatmaps from the old interface with the new interface, it showed a 400% increase in usage of the features. 
  • The unit directory can now be updated by anyone in the organisation that's had training on Squiz CMS.
  • Self-service has increased which has drastically decreased the volume of support questions from students.

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