Pepperdine is a nationally ranked, faith-based university located in Malibu, California, offering distinctly different student experiences for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. 

 

For their mobile-first, UX-driven web redesign, I guided content additions, removals, rewrites and layout to improve way-finding, strengthen SEO and "warm up" the somewhat stiff or overly academic brand communication. Pepperdine also wanted to speak to the prospective student -- many of whom are in high school -- without excluding parents and families. This meant relocating content directed at current students, faculty and administration, and inspiring new users to engage in a way that doesn't force them into restrictive paths or unnecessary funnels.

 

The work included an information architecture overhaul and content migration for the main university site, the School of Law, the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, the School of Public Policy and the School of Business and Management at Pepperdine.

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This was an interesting challenge -- an entirely new industry and environment for me to work in while (ironically?) working on a TV movie rewrite for Disney Channel that took place at a boarding school. Following the launch, I went on to consult with some of those schools and helped them apply the new user-driven thinking to their sites and solutions.

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See process deck

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Additional contributions:​
 

• guided work flow, bringing the site furthest behind in production to the furthest ahead

• built and edited hundreds of pages under tight deadlines

• established best practices for future writers and web producers

• provided input on CMS development and instructional language

• helped individual department heads identify tailored solutions for their distinct content needs