The UX Tool That Finally Got University Departments on the Same Page
Insights, delivered.
I was in a room full of people from the University of Louisville’s Office of Communications & Marketing and Information Technology Services. These were the folks responsible for how the university shows up for students online and on campus. On the screen was the culmination of eight months of deep research from our team. It was a detailed map of the entire student experience, from the first time they hear about the University of Louisville (UofL) to becoming an alumni.
The room was silent as I moved through it. The map showed real problems. Problems a lot of higher ed institutions face. Each college was managing its own admissions information. They were copying what was already on the main admissions site, letting it go stale, and sometimes contradicting it. This left prospective students unsure what to believe. It revealed that students struggled to understand if a “financial hold” was a Financial Aid issue or a Bursar issue. And scholarships were confusing, too, because every academic department managed its own scholarship programs. This meant no one could give a student a straight answer about which scholarships they qualified for.
Everyone was taking in the map I presented. The room was still quiet. And then the Senior Creative Director said:
So, what was this map? What is a Service Blueprint?
A service blueprint is a detailed map that connects departments, systems, and the people they serve. It captures what students actually see and interact with, alongside the staff, systems, and policies that work behind the scenes. This presentation was the first time everyone in that room was looking at the same picture. And at UofL, that picture said a lot.
Here’s the reality I see with our university clients: the enrollment cliff isn’t coming—it’s here. The pool of traditional college-age students is shrinking. Every school is competing harder for fewer people. On top of that, online programs, bootcamps, and alternative credentials make a compelling case to your prospects that there’s a faster, cheaper path to a career. And some of those prospects are listening. Opting out of a four-year degree altogether.
In that environment, you can’t afford a fragmented student experience. You can’t afford Admissions not knowing what Financial Aid tells students, or a prospective student hitting three dead ends before finding the right person to talk to. Every friction point in that journey is now a retention risk and a recruitment liability.
At UofL, once that blueprint was on the screen, everything was exposed. In a good way! They could see what was working, what was redundant, and where things were breaking down. That became the real starting point for UofL’s higher education website redesign. The solution didn’t start with a new Content Management System (CMS) or a rebrand. It started with a shared picture of what students were really experiencing and an honest conversation about what to do about it—aligning departments across silos.
Now, silos that had been defended for years became problems worth solving together. That shared understanding made buy-in easier and the solutions that followed more collaborative.
Here’s how silos impacted the student experience
Students received duplicate emails because applicant types weren’t segmented within Admissions.
Course information was split across two systems, the Class Search and the Schedule of Classes. Neither was consistently updated, leaving students guessing which one to trust.
Students juggled five or more separate accounts just to handle the basics—orientation, tuition, classes, email, and assignments. Five systems. Five logins. Frustrating students before they even set foot on campus.
When the folks in the room saw the blueprint, we noticed a shift. Departments stopped defending their lane and started asking how to improve the whole road. From these insights, we rebuilt their student services section around topics students search for, like mental health, financial aid, and parking, not around department names. That way, students didn’t need to know in advance that the Counseling Center is different from Campus Health Services just to find help. We also recommended an automated email sent after a student applies. In it would be what they could expect during the process, when they’ll hear a decision, and who their admissions advisor will be. It sounds small, but for a student waiting to hear back, it means a lot.
As one of our clients, Amber, Director of Web & Digital Marketing, Office of Communications & Marketing, put it:
”This will keep us focused on the experience versus looking at our own stuff all the time. It’s about refocusing everybody on the vision—and that is the student experience.”
A Service Blueprint won’t solve everything—and I’d be skeptical of anyone who tells you otherwise. Calcified silos don’t disappear overnight. The budget doesn’t magically grow. The enrollment cliff doesn’t stop dropping. Those are bigger than any single tool.
But it does give your team something that’s surprisingly rare in higher ed: a shared picture of reality. Not your department’s reality, or IT’s reality, or Admissions’ reality—the student’s reality. That kind of shared clarity doesn’t come easy in higher ed, where decisions can take a semester and turf wars can take a decade. But once everyone is looking at the same picture, ignoring the gaps between departments becomes much harder to justify.
That’s what Amber meant. That’s what the room felt like when I presented the map.
Mighty Citizen Can Help
Looking to consolidate silos and improve your student experience? Contact us today to get your digital experience aligned for better student outcomes.
