ROLE
UX/UI Designer, UX Research
TOOLS
Figma, Illustrator, SharePoint
TIMEFRAME
May 2025 - May 2026
quinnipiac marcom
website redesign
This project focuses on redesigning Quinnipiac University's Marketing and Communications (MarCom) internal site as part of a larger transition to a new platform built within Microsoft SharePoint. The site serves as a primary resource for university faculty, staff, and internal partners who depend on the MarCom department for branding, creative services and project support.
My role centers on redrawing the user experience, information architecture, and content strategy for the MarCom website. The goal here was to create a clear, accessible, low-maintenance, and scalable site that would assist non-marketing users to quickly find information, understand department processes, and efficiently access self-service tools.
The challenge
The existing MarCom site was difficult to navigate, content-heavy, and unclear about the department's offered services. Users often struggled to understand where to locate brand assets or identify supported work. As a result, the MarCom team received high volumes of requests, creating inefficiencies and decelerated turnaround times.
OVERVIEW
Website Audit
Current Information Architecture
Inspiration
research
existing website audit
In order to understand user needs, I performed an audit of the existing MarCom site to identify usability issues, redundancies, and gaps.
primary issues
Lack of User-Centric Structure
Internal Focus: Organized around departmental structures rather than actual user goals or workflows.
Goal Misalignment: Failed to prioritize common tasks, such as finding quick answers, accessing brand assets, or independent task completion.
Poor Content Design
High Cognitive Load: Excessive, text-heavy pages forced users to scan large blocks of content, increasing frustration.
Information Burials: Critical tools like templates and brand assets were hidden deep within a limited three-page architecture.
Inefficient Discovery: Navigation required constant guesswork, making the journey to goal completion slow and unintuitive.
Accessibility and Usability Gaps
Limited Entry Points: Failed to accommodate diverse user needs or different starting paths.
Friction-Heavy Flow: Unintentionally funneled users toward submitting manual requests instead of self-serving.
Structural Confusion: Inconsistent labeling and a weak visual hierarchy undermined the site’s overall usability and accessibility.
current INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
The primary issue with the existing navigation was that it was not structured around user goals. The content was organized from an internal and departmental perspective, instead of what the target users were actually trying to accomplish. This might include finding answers quickly, accessing brand assets, or completing tasks independently. It was also very text-heavy, requiring users to scan large amounts of content, increasing frustration and cognitive load.
Key actions like finding brand assets or templates were deeply buried within the only three pages the site had. This made goal completion inefficient because it required the user to constantly guess where everything lived.
The navigation also failed to consider diverse user needs because it had limited entry points and was unintentionally pushing users towards submitting requests. Inconsistent labeling and unclear hierarchy negatively impacted the site's accessibility and usability.
inspiration
I also referenced research and reviewed higher education and industry brand sites from universities and companies including Stanford, John Hopkins, Northwestern, and Uber to identify best practices for navigation, content organization, and self-service tools.
OVERVIEW
Thought Process
Feedback
IA ideation
Round 1 (05.28.2025)
thought process
The first iteration of the proposed information architecture focused on reorganizing the content into clearer and more logical categories. The objective was to minimize the clutter and make it easier for users to understand where information lived. At this early phase of the project, I emphasized project request forms because I thought it was a call-to-action that the department wanted to be more accessible.
Feedback
Early feedback revealed core usability issues. Users could still feel lost within this structure because of ambiguous labeling, important categories were not being prioritized, and there was a limited amount of entry points. This navigation still needed to be better aligned with how the user thinks about their tasks.
Round 2 (06.24.2025)
thought process
In the second iteration, the information architecture moved to a more educational-forward and task-oriented strategy. This round introduces more defined main categories in the navigation including the different mediums the department works in (print, digital, environmental, etc.). The idea of subpages would ultimately create different entry points, catering for both users who may not be knowledgeable of the departments services and those who know exactly what their goal is. This round also placed greater emphasis on templates, guidelines, and request forms.
Feedback
Feedback from the stakeholders included stronger promotion of template usage, the inclusion of photography, video, social media, and editorial services, strengthening the "Support" category, and explicitly letting the user know the department only creates certain deliverables. There was also a new request to streamline the process for submitting requests for big events that may require more collateral.
Round 3 (08.21.2025)
thought process
The third iteration responded directly to the feedback. The homepage better accomplishes in highlighting the department's capabilities and incorporates the additional service areas to reflect the department's scope of work. There is also a dedicated place for event-related submissions and a strengthened "Support" category.
Feedback
The feedback received emphasized the need to shift the site structure toward user intent rather than internal organization. By prioritizing wayfinding on the homepage and guiding users toward self-service resources, the goal was to reduce unnecessary request submissions while setting expectations more subtly without depending on explicit “What We Don’t Do” pages.
Round 4 (11.21.2025)
thought process
To push user decision-making and manage request volume, Round Four's structure introduced a secondary navigation focused on utility and guidance. Request submissions were intentionally deprioritized, while existing resources, templates, and guidelines were more prominently visible to encourage self-service before departmental assistance.
OVERVIEW
Beginning to Build
Prototypes
sandbox
beginning to build
After agreeing on the new information architecture, the next step was to begin building in a sandbox on Microsoft SharePoint. Utilizing the university’s brand and identity, I laid out the primary navigation items and subcategories. These pages were shared to stakeholders across the entire team
home page
brand assets & tools / graphics
templates
brand assets & tools
using the brand / social media
event support
OVERVIEW
Retrospective
Reflect
Retrospective
This project reinforced the importance of user-centric information architecture and iterative design in transforming an internal tool into a strategic brand resource. By shifting the site's logic from "department-focused" to "intent-oriented," I was able to create a structure that balances departmental efficiency with user empowerment, reducing cognitive load while encouraging self-service.