University of Michigan
Read how R2i built a digital foundation for a more personalized and connected experience for all audiences across the Michigan brand.
Challenge
The University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) needed a sophisticated technology platform to unify disparate departments and manage their library of digital content. R2i was tasked with evaluating and implementing the most effective technology solution to solve for:
- Absence of consistent code or design guidelines, causing each website to look and feel like a completely different experience
- Lack of common code also made it more difficult for the LSA IT team to support their vast array of websites, as each website possessed its own unique code challenges
- Keeping websites up to date with the latest news, events, and information from a variety of departments
- Scaling IT staff and support resources to effectively manage their 130 websites
- Creating a holistic consistent user experience across University of Michigan’s ecosystem of websites to encourage greater engagement from students, faculty, and donors
Solution
After meeting with stakeholders, evaluating, scoring and comparing vendors, R2i presented website platform Adobe Experience Manager. The industry leading technology delivers a user centric design system that was implemented and able to scale across Michigan’s digital ecosystem and serve as their long-term solution for managing digital assets and student experiences through:
- Consistent brand experience across all digital touchpoints
- New option to work with Managed Services, offloading a great deal of administrative work and freeing up internal resources to work on supporting users and creating new digital experiences for LSA audiences
- Research and Data driven strategy that tells the story of a premier academic and medical center (Michigan + Michigan Medicine)
- Accommodating more than 400 users to manage content across the ecosystem of sites
- Consolidated technology that provides scale and ease of use to deploy content and feature updates
- Ability to deliver standard templates and components to improve consistency, design quality, and user experiences across websites without completely restricting users’ ability to customize pages
- A digital foundation that serves as a vehicle for a more personalized and connected experience for all audiences across the Michigan brand
Impact
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PLANNING
Consolidated 60+ stakeholder interviews into key requirements, creating a foundation for College wide buy in. Presented organizational and technology recommendations to Deans group for executive alignment and buy-in.
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MIGRATION
Built a unified set of components and templates to serve as a foundation for migration of 220+ sites into a single CMS framework. Transferred over 4,000 assets and 6,000 pages to new IA and site templates, while training staff and building material for rollout.
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SCALING
Scales support to 130 WEBSITES with less than a dozen staff with consistent code and design.
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EXPERIENCE
Improved WEBSITE EXPERIENCE for students and faculty with consistent navigation and design.
The Goods
- Strategy & Insights
- Marketing Automation
- Data & Analytics
- Experience Design
- Search Engine Optimization
- Digital Marketing
- Media