About
Back in Fall 2012, our Web Communications team took on the challenge of creating a “how to” page to help incoming students overcome the chaos of dealing with the first week of university life. It was a successful team-driven project, initiated by our Content and Social Media Strategist Ryan Morejon (@ryan_morejon), which quickly grew into a digital survival guide. Both Ryan and I were responsible for the conceptualization and presentation of the project on the web.
The Spring 2013 Survival Guide was well received by the FIU community. For the next iteration, we teamed with the university's social media team, graphic designers from our division’s publications office, and several content-generating departments like parking and transportation, undergraduate admissions and student services.
In essence, we simply improved the prior year’s guide by providing students with richer content and an improved visual design. We also upped our marketing game for promoting the guide through larger-than-life sidewalk stickers prompting students to visit the guide through an FIU-branded short URL.
Content Strategy
One of our first steps in making this project possible was to research about the students' needs. The content strategy was spearheaded by our Content and Social Media Strategist Ryan Morejon (@ryan_morejon). A lot of the information used in the guide was based off of students' concerns on social media.
We asked this question on Facebook.
Using our knowledge of campus as alumni, as well as user testing, we decided to separate the guide into 7 parts. We also provided tips, tricks and shortcuts, especially with parking, busses and shuttles. We collaborated with Parking and Transportation for their very own solutions to parking & traffic jams.
1. Dates & Events
2. Parking
3. Busses and Shuttles
4. Maps and Buildings
5. Food
6. Textbooks
7. Resources
2. Parking
3. Busses and Shuttles
4. Maps and Buildings
5. Food
6. Textbooks
7. Resources
Metrics
During Fall 2013 - Fall 2014 (August 2013 - August 2014):
- 8,000 Regular Viewers
- Average Session - 1:30 Minutes
- 22,600 Pageviews
- Each semester, shift from desktop to mobile experience grows.
- Average Session - 1:30 Minutes
- 22,600 Pageviews
- Each semester, shift from desktop to mobile experience grows.
In August 2014, 60% of survival guide users were experiencing the guide on thier smartphone.
Design
