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Vision and Guiding Principles

Project: Students-First Web Redesign

Prepared by: Web Advisory Group

Last updated: 3/15/22

“Palomar College respects each of our students’ experiences and supports them to achieve academic success. As a community college, we encourage our students to embrace the best version of themselves and prepare them to engage with our local and global communities.”

– Mission Statement of the Palomar Community College District

Project Vision Statement

The Palomar.edu Students-First Web Redesign project exists to enhance the user experience of prospective and current student visitors to the Palomar Community College’s website (Palomar.edu). Palomar College distributes an array of information to the public via its website. Ranging from detail about its academic programs and how to apply and enroll to its institutional background and community-related content, Palomar.edu serves a wide range of constituents. While its diverse student audience is primary, Palomar.edu’s secondary audience includes faculty, staff, educational partners, the community, and local businesses.

The institution’s vision statement, “Learning for Success,” relates to existing and prospective degree, transfer, certificate and CTE learners. Therefore, Palomar.edu should reinforce the vision statement site wide. To that end, the Palomar.edu Students-First Web Redesign project prioritizes the needs of student visitors. To that end, it’s principal goals are to: orient the information architecture toward prospective and current students; provide a clear wayfinding experience that is pleasing, consistent, and accessible; align with Palomar’s mission statement, branding and messaging; invite student visitors to share the Palomar experience; and to engage and solicit action from its visitors.

The Palomar.edu Students-First Web Redesign project is a result of Palomar College’s partnership with Civilian Agency. Funded by the CCC Regional Consortium, the Students-First Web Optimization project brought value to the college through the following outcomes:​

  • Student experience data collection and gap study. ​
  • Set of core messaging priorities (CMP) and the identification of the top 100 pages for them. ​
  • A recommended sitemap of the top 500 pages. ​
  • Recommended page outlines for student-centric information delivery and suggestions to enhance the alignment of CMPs on the homepage. ​

Guiding Principles

These are the values that will guide all our work on this project and constitute the core values of the design process.

Students-First

The information architecture shall be organized toward the needs of an existing or prospective student. Top-level landing pages will follow the information guidelines provided by Civilian Agency, as they relate to Palomar College specifics.

Simplified Wayfinding

Palomar College seeks to communicate a vast amount of information via its website.  The design should allow quick access to pertinent content within one or two click(s) from the homepage via methods such as landing pages, search bars, quick links, an a-z index, and an augmented footer menu. Information should be presented in component pieces; and visual hierarchy and images, used to tell the user where to look first.

Clean and Consistent

A fresh, pleasing, uncluttered design that is image-rich and visually and kinesthetically consistent across the entire site will create a positive user experience. Various screen sizes from desktop to mobile smartphone should load the site suitably, while retaining design integrity.

Universal

The layout and usability of the website should facilitate access to all visitors equally and without compromising aesthetics or information delivery. Access for the user, across devices and demographics, should be intuitive and accessible.

Cause to Engage

Palomar.edu should engage the viewer with compelling visual stories of learning through innovation as well as Palomar’s success from the classrooms to its support services and finally within the community. Palomar.edu should take the visitor to moments of intrigue and feeling through genuine stories of individual faculty, students, staff members and teams.

Lead to Action

Palomar.edu should contain interactive opportunities for visitors to engage with Palomar College departments and programs, driving said visitors to action. Prospective students should be empowered to take ownership of their admissions and enrollment processes with visual tools and downloadable resources.

Goals

The following goals are specific, measurable outcomes from the project. Each goal carries equal weight.

Adaptive

Page layouts shall be designed as fully responsive and will adapt to a variety of screen sizes. In addition to presentation on desktop and laptop screens, pages will scale or redraw for handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Accessible

The landing and audience pages, as well as the CMS theme shall comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards. To achieve and maintain ongoing site-wide compliance, routine accessibility checks shall occur. Users shall have a means to submit feedback regarding accessibility issues or concerns.

Compliant

The Palomar logo mark and colors shall be clearly and consistently displayed throughout the site and per the Graphic Standards and Style Manual (https://www.palomar.edu/guidelines/). Where applicable, written messages shall coincide with the institution’s overall messages. All written content shall adhere to the rules of grammar and spelling found in the Graphic Standards and Style Manual.

Consistent

The interface shall be a well-defined, navigational schema that is site-wide and centers on the user. To achieve a natural navigational experience, interface components shall be consistent and predictable in their physical placement and visual presentation. The information architecture shall reflect the recommendations provided by Civilian Agency.

Diverse

The home page shall have a prominent area devoted to the diverse stories that comprise the Palomar experience. Content shall include but not be limited to: academic programs and achievements, institutional achievements, athletic achievements, community events, news. Notwithstanding the limitations and possible inaccuracies, on-the-fly translation shall be universally incorporated into the site.

Helpful

The user will enjoy access to assistance through a chat mechanism to be installed on all student-facing pages. In addition to the immediate answers database, visitors will be able to interact via the chat feature and obtain assistance via email.

Inviting

The look and feel of the entire site shall engage the user through a visually pleasing and impactful design. Where applicable, images shall be large and engaging. Imagery shall illustrate ethnic diversity and convey the Palomar experience. The home page shall provide clearly defined entry points to the following educational pathways for prospective, new, and current students: transfer, AA/AS degrees, certificate programs, and career/technical education certification.