Client & Project Overview
Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) is the oldest university press in America. As such, their digital presence needed a refresh. The desktop and mobile experiences were inconsistent, the content was spread out across multiple subdomains, and the check out process was clunky. What’s more - online business was up due to the global pandemic, so they needed to modernize as soon as possible.
HOW IT GOT DONE
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HOW IT GOT DONE *
Step 1: Research
As is the case for every successful project, the first step was research. For JHU Press, this included stakeholder interviews and a thorough content evaluation. By meeting with individuals across the organization and evaluating their existing content, we could ultimately determine what the new website needed to do, find potential hiccups, and create a plan to get there.
Step 2: Strategize
As a result of discovery, my team and myself created a discovery results presentation. The intention of this document was to present our findings and offer the client the opportunity to further clarify any of our research. It also allowed an opportunity for us to begin to tease some of our ideas for this project, thereby giving the client a chance to either buy in or speak up before we spent too much time incubating the ideas.
Step 3: Design
JHU Press’s information architecture spanned 3 disparate experiences. Technical limitations also required we maintain 2 separate check out experiences for books versus journals.
Ultimately, this led to the decision to follow standard ecommerce paradigms when it came to product pages and the checkout experience, and to divert where necessary for them. One way I diverted was the ability to “jump” throughout the product detail page to quickly scroll through potentially quite lengthy content.
Results
JHU Press showcased their new site in an internal Town Hall meeting to rave reviews and positive feedback from staff, students, and stakeholders alike.
Moreover, the new site was honored with two Awards of Distinction for website design at the 29th Annual Communicator Awards.