The Opportunity

As the leading accreditor in the New England area for colleges and universities, The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) recognized the critical need to revamp its website to enhance user experience and functionality. The project aimed to address several critical challenges: creating an intuitive interface, improving navigation, ensuring accessibility across devices, and optimizing content management. This case study explores the comprehensive approach that guided the redesign, emphasizing research, user-centered design, and responsive principles as pivotal drivers of the transformation.

The Strategy

The existing NECHE website, while functional, presented several challenges. Despite its functionality, users encountered difficulties navigating and locating essential information due to its non-intuitive interface. Therefore, simplifying content access through information architecture reconfiguration became imperative. Additionally, with the increasing use of mobile devices, ensuring the website’s responsiveness and visual consistency was crucial. NECHE also implemented a robust content management system to streamline information organization and enhance search capabilities for users seeking relevant resources.

The Result

The redesigned NECHE website represents a successful transformation driven by user-centric principles and responsive design. The enhancements in user experience, navigation, and seamless accessibility across devices have elevated the website to a valuable stakeholder resource. Serving as a central hub for accreditation information, documentation access, and updates ensures that NECHE effectively meets the evolving needs of its community and maintains credibility as a trusted resource in higher education accreditation.

Notable features and functionality:

• Implementation of a filterable membership database
• Integration of dynamic content feeds
• User-friendly backend for easy management
• Efficient content and membership management using Excel uploads