Author Archives: hoho33

What is Brooklyn College?

• Brooklyn College is part of City University of New York (CUNY)
• College offers undergraduate and graduate degrees

Global Problem

• Updated website look and feel to leverage storytelling and improve communication with two core audiences: current and prospective students
• Information architecture (IA) reworked at department and page level due to content migration
• Content creation and copyediting to reflect new brand voice and tone: second person that was friendly and informal

Global Solution

• Developed and implemented content and marketing strategy: delivered content to audience segments instead of through lens of department
• Worked with departments around college including student advisement (CAASS), Admissions, Financial Aid, and Registrar to revamp IA, page navigation, and content strategy
• Content creation, revision, and production of pages for new responsive site

Current Students

Center of Academic Advisement and Student Success (CAASS)

Ask

• Redefine student journey through undergraduate advisement
• Students can find resources more easily to support their academic and personal experiences

Solution

• Rework IA of all advisement departments so content presented through audiences instead of by department
• Scope was narrowed to only undergraduate advisement due to time constraints
• Content creation, consolidation, copyediting, and page production to implement new IA and more efficiently guide students through taking advantage of college’s advising services
• New pages for continuing students and CUNY transfer students were created

CAASS Landing Page

First-Year, Continuing, and Transfer Students

Registrar

Ask

• Simplify student journey to register for classes

Solution

• Synthesized content on Registrar landing page by combining content with secondary Registrar Information page, so students could navigate to one page for registration information
• Moved Schedule Builder content from Registrar Information page to dedicated Schedule Builder page
• The global nav Register now linked to Registrar landing page instead of the Registrar Information page (page was sunset)

Current and Prospective Students

Financial Aid

Ask

• Simplify journey for prospective and current students to understand and engage with complex process of applying for financial aid

Solution

• Reworked content design on landing page to guide students through financial aid application process
• Synthesized undergraduate and graduate types of aid pages into Types of Aid page addressing both audiences and sunset two older pages
• Collaborated with Financial Aid department to rewrite and copyedit content to meet state and Federal compliance requirements

I conducted a content audit for JerseySTEM.org to assess necessary content updates across the site. I also produced the following audit report to present my findings to the Marketing Director.

This set of materials was written to explain to college counselors how SAT School Day was going to be administered in Illinois.

Illinois Cover Letter

Illinois Counselor School Reference

SAT Illinois Counselor Toolkit Poster

Illinois Counselor Student Brochure

Illinois Parent Toolkit

Objective
During this client project for my General Assembly class, my partner and I were tasked with creating a mobile app in three weeks for FORTE where users could participate in and share video workouts. FORTE is a social and interactive platform that allows users to stream live and on-demand fitness classes from coveted boutique fitness studios.

Outcome
Our research led us to create a flow where users were given multiple points of entry to the content. We also designed an onboarding process that took new and current users into consideration. Our clients were pleased with the new app, and applied our findings to their beta site.

Email Newsletter Redesign: worked with editorial, design, and email marketing teams to apply results of user testing to the redesign of an email newsletter that that reached 550,000 teachers monthly.  Also edited content for six versions of the monthly newsletter, and worked with the email marketing team to ensure deployment.

Teacher Homepage: oversaw day-to-day production and created editorial calendar for Scholastic teacher’s website (the #1 point of entry into Scholastic.com). Also worked with internal departments to update content and promotions.

Homepage Content Promotions: copywriter for homepage promotions. Worked with designer to implement final design.

Created online content from print brochure for the Property Management section of the site.

Oversaw complete site overhaul that improved site architecture, navigation, and design. Monthly page views increased 241%.

I also wrote artist profiles for the print magazine and website.

What is Dylan Valencia Designs?

Dylan Valencia Designs is a small boutique children’s clothing company.

Project Goal

• To ensure the navigation was clear and easy to follow fo the user.
• To produce clear product copy that would lead to higher sales.

Consistent Site Navigation

The site navigation was tweaked so that the words were consistent on the navigation across the site.

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Copyediting Apparel Listings

I established the following style for each listing:

• Short, descriptive product title.
• One sentence general product description.
• The use of dashes for additional descriptive details.
• A separate section for sizing information.

I also checked that the sizes in the pull down menu matched the sizing chart image.

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Outcome

A children’s clothing website that offered a consistent user experience to its customers.

*All slide images courtesy of Tanzen.

Who is this Organization?

This organization’s goal is to raise money for an elite university in Israel. Therefore, the website should provide information that urges people to donate and that guides them through the donation process.

Project Goals

I was brought on by Carrie Hane of Tanzen to assist with this project. 

1. We have listened to internal stakeholders and donors from around the country, from various ages, and donor levels, and the communications team at the non-profit. 
2. We know what the measures of success for the website are and have a plan to do ongoing measurement. 
3. The website is easier to keep updated in the following ways:
   • A clear and efficient workflow for editing, adding, or removing content is established and followed
   • Technology is flexible and scalable to accommodate future changes to content needs
   • CMS has a clear maintenance schedule and upgrade path
   • Google Analytics code is added so that appropriate data can be collected (see Goal 2)
4. All stakeholders feel like their expectations were met and they knew the project status at all times. 

Discovery: User Research and Story Mapping

I participated in the kick-off meeting and then reviewed stakeholder documents to better understand the client’s current content and branding. I conducted several stakeholder and donor interviews to contribute to the user research for the project (meeting project goal #1). We used the results from interviews to create user stories and two story maps. The origin story map demonstrates the user journey of someone who is discovering the organization for the first time, while the usage story map demonstrates the the user journey of someone who has already had some exposure to the organization.

We also came up with a content strategy statement that would guide the creation of content: The client’s website offers inspiring, educational content that helps raises money and create awareness for the university by making Jews who live in the U.S. who have an interest in technology feel inspired and motivated, convincing them to make a donation, sign up for emails, attend events, and share information about the university. 

Finally, we came up with several goals for the website and how those goals should be measured to meet project goal #2: 

Content Planning

Next we used the user stories and story maps to create a content model. A content model is a model that focuses on the structured content that you will actually publish. A content type has a definition and must also have attributes. The content model also shows the relationships between content types, so that the model can be easily converted into structured content. Content types and attributes can later become CMS fields. For example:

Content Type	Attributes
Event: an activity that the organization or an affiliated organization hosts to share information about the university, its activities, or Israeli STEM innovations	Event Name
	Description
	Topic
	Start/End Date & Time
	Venue
	Address 1
	Address 2
	Image
	Speaker
	Speaker Bio
	Host
	RSVP Information
	Cancellation Policy

Below is an example of a small part of a model that shows the relationships between content types:

Next I audited the existing site content again the content model to see if we could use any of this content on the new site. The audit demonstrated that a very small percentage of content, the stories about the university’s innovations, would be useful on the new site. Auditing the existing content against the content model was very helpful because I could see if the content types applied to the content. 

The next step was to create content sheets, which define the core content based on audience needs and business goals. The sheets also define the structure of the content based on the content model. Designers and developers use these sheets to create the interface design and the CMS.

Finally, a site menu was created for the main navigation of the site.

Potential Implementation

• Creating content (email, web, and social)
• Making the website easy to use and to meet goals
• Building a CMS that is flexible and scalable to accommodate future changes to content needs

What is SAT School Day?

States or school districts can offer any of the SAT suite of assessments free of charge to students during the school day. These assessments include the PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, PSAT/NMSQT, and SAT.

Project Goal

To update the content on the central SAT School Day information page for state administrators and educators. This portal page for Michigan is an example of one of the pages created for this purpose.

Establishing a Production Process

First, I established a timeline and refined the content review process with internal stakeholders. We came up with the following process for creating and publishing content:

1. I drafted copy incorporating dates and other pertinent information provided by the stakeholder.
2. The stakeholder reviewed my copy.
3. Stakeholder edits were incorporated into the copy.
4. I poured the copy into the CMS and published it to the site.

Content Strategy

I used GatherContent to create a rotating database of content based on the sales/testing cycle. This database made updates to the page easier because content could be pulled from the databased and edited as needed. The cycle consisted of:

1. Marketing
2. Preparation for the test administration
3. Test administration
4. Post-test information such as how to receive score reports

Here is an example of content created for the post-test administration phase of the Michigan test cycle:

Outcome

Comprehensive portal pages for Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado that educators and administrators could use to access information about assessments offered in their state.