Just a few hours north of our headquarters in Austin, Interstate 35 forks into two branches through Dallas, coming back together in Denton, Texas, right at the heart of the University of North Texas. The east branch divides a bustling campus from its football stadium, where you’ll likely hear a hearty “Go Mean Green!” roaring across campus to Fry Street and back. If they win at home, they’ll light the administration building’s tower green to celebrate.
Compared to the next institution, UNT has no shortage of their own rituals and traditions—but they’re all navigating the same challenges. In the age of strategic enrollment and digital experiences, many universities are working against the clock to improve how their students interact with them online. Yet still, UNT has managed to push the envelope and challenge trends. In fact, UNT has accounted for over half of new enrollment growth for Texas public universities. They’ve seen record-breaking enrollment over the last five years, coupled with a high rate of degrees conferred. They know that keeping up requires proactive action—and that’s precisely why they came to Mighty Citizen.
We had the privilege of collaborating with UNT on a series of projects aimed at enhancing and optimizing their digital experience. Through four main phases, we restructured their information architecture (IA) and user experience (UX) to create a cohesive and efficient digital presence.
Information Architecture and Audience Research
Throughout our work with UNT, we emphasized the importance of user research to inform how each component would be structured and designed. Information architecture in higher education feels different than in any other industry. There tend to be best practices just given the type of institution and the various types of users they interact with. There’s so much to consider for each page, and it’s impossible for universities to prioritize every single audience they have on any given page. It can all be very complex!
We engaged with students, prospective students, parents, and UNT staff through focus groups, surveys, and interviews. Through our research, we formed an approach to content organization and prioritization, ensuring that user goals took precedence over departmental goals. We created user journeys and profiles to visualize key paths students take to enroll at UNT, providing a common framework for understanding the user experience.
Main Website UX, Navigation, and Content
The initial phase of our collaboration focused on UNT’s main website, particularly on academics, admissions, financial aid, and registrar sites. We conducted extensive discovery sessions to understand user needs, leading to a comprehensive IA overhaul. This phase aimed to streamline applications, information requests, tour scheduling, and event registration, ultimately reducing the volume of calls and emails for common issues.
We also transformed UNT’s academic program information. We helped them organize their program and degree information, create optimized pages, and develop a program finder to greatly improve how that crucial information is displayed.
College Sites: UX, Navigation, and Content
Building on the success of the main website, we extended our efforts to individual college sites within UNT. This phase involved meticulous discovery, IA, wireframing, and sitemapping guidance for each college within the university. Our goal was to create consistent user experiences for department information, degree programs, academic advising, research projects, and structured content like news, events, and faculty contacts.
Division of Digital Strategy and Innovation
When UNT combined components of six different departments to form the Division of Digital Strategy and Innovation (DSI), they sought us out to work on the website. Unlike previous phases where we focused solely on IA, we also took on the design role for this engagement. “Decentralization” is a buzzword in higher education, but for good reason. When every department is working in a silo, there is no sharing of resources or best practices. The result will be duplicative processes and slowed progress, every time.
Our work with DSI marked a shift towards a more integrated partnership, aiming to centralize design and structure retroactively. Our work included IA, wireframing, and designing the DSI’s digital presence to create the best user experience possible.
UNT Tuition Calculator
Any student’s decision to enroll at your university is an emotional one—but also increasingly logical given the current climate and value proposition of earning a degree.
Our most recent project was developing a tuition calculator. Our developers coded this small yet significant tool and handed it over to UNT for implementation. With this tool, prospective students and their families can feel more confident and at ease, enhancing their decision-making process regarding tuition and financial planning.
Mighty Citizen’s collaboration with the University of North Texas resulted in a transformed digital landscape that prioritizes user experience and streamlined information architecture. By addressing the unique challenges of higher education, we created a refined digital presence that supports UNT’s diverse audiences. As UNT continues to grow, these structures and systems will grow with it, too.
Mighty Citizen for Higher Education
Interested in partnering with us? Our experts can help you balance the needs of your many unique audiences while delivering measurable improvements to your bottom-line goals. If you have a project in mind or are curious about your specific needs, reach out—we’d love to chat.