University Relations - B r a n d i n g -Web Ana lys is

1Comm 322Analysis Team

We will be blessed and find great success as we move along our steady, upward course.

Advisor: Brother Lee Warnick

Team Members: Meg Shaver Chase Burk Leslie Chacon Karla Lugo Kyle Treasure

President Kim B. Clark

1

Contents: Situation Analysis pg 2 Focus Group pg 3 Web Analysis pg 8 Conclusions pg 14

11

SituationAnalysis

2

BYU-Idaho University Relations is in charge of all branding for the university. They ensure that all visual and written messages released by the university work together to accomplish the vision of the school. University Relations came to us to do an analysis of the branding section of byui.edu. This site allows users to learn about branding, create branding materials, and submit them for approval by the university. We were charged with answering a simple list of questions for University Relations:

The organization is struggling to understand these key elements to their online presence. However, there are also a lot of opportunities for improvement. For instance, the department is currently working on redesigning the webpage to make it more user-friendly. This will help solve a lot of the issues that the system currently faces. The bottom line is that University Relations is a key part of the university. Its imperative to the overall image of the university for this organization to run smoothly and efficiently. This analysis will help that to become a reality.

- What are visitors doing when on the site?- Where are they coming from?- How often do they download templates?- Which templates do they download?

The seeds we are planting today will grow and become mighty oaks, and their branches will run all over the earth.

Principal Jacob Spori

1Focus Group

3

Background : University Relations is charged with all of BYU-Idahos branding efforts. They ensure that all marketing and advertising materials are consistent with the brand. This is a very large undertaking! Currently, the main way for anyone to get information on branding or instruction on how to create his or her own materials consistent with the brand is by going to byui.edu. They must follow some set instructions and then submit a design for approval by University Relations. Many students and faculty find the current system wordy, hard to follow, and complicated. In an effort to find which parts of the current system work well and which dont, we conducted a focus group of ten randomly picked BYU-Idaho students.

Conduct ing the Focus Group : This focus group is about the current branding process at BYU-Idaho available through University Relations. Participants were asked to access the branding section of the website and navigate to where they need to go to make a poster on campus. We simply observed their actions as they accessed the website and took notes of where they got stuck, where they asked questions, and what questions they asked. Any other instances of special note were taken down as well.

Ana lys i s : After the focus group data was gathered, our team met together and discussed the information. We found trends and patterns. We drew conclusions

[BYU-Idaho] was founded upon the firm belief that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

President John L. Clarke

11 4

from the information. From these conclusions, we made recommendations and comments about the current branding process. The information gathered will help the department improve their process.

Find ings :

Subject 1: The subject used the search bar on the BYU-Idaho home page. They followed the first link available. Because the subject was quite confused as to how and why they would make a poster, they decided to download both the Publisher and InDesign options so they could try them both out. The subject expressed confusion and more or less had to be encouraged to just begin the process of trying. For getting the poster approved they said they would search Poster Approval. The subject then went to the marketing site. They then went back to the main site. They clicked on marketing approval submission form. Then completed by final submission. Total time: 3.0 mins

Subject 2: The subject used the search bar on the BYU-Idaho site and used the words poster Making. They then followed the poster link and searched poster approval. Read the word document. Decided they would email the request to get submission approval. Total time: 3.5 mins

Subject 3: The subject used the BYU-Idaho site search bar. They searched Poster Examples and followed the first link. They then decided that they would download it in InDesign. The subject clicked on the download instructions tab and read them quickly. They said they would call to receive instructions on proper submission for approval. Total time: 2.0 mins

Subject 4: The subject used the BYU-Idaho site search bar and searched the words Poster Template. They then followed the first link available. They chose to download the template with InDesign. We asked them next how they would go about getting the poster

15

submitted for approval. They responded by saying that they would search branding and marketing. They would then try calling that office for further instructions on submitting for proper approval. Total time: 3.0 mins

Subject 5: This subject seemed a little confused when first asked to create a poster. They asked if they could login to their student account before beginning the process. Once they logged in, they searched Poster Templates in the search bar. They then clicked on posters and chose to download in Publisher. They said they would email Talent and Activities office for approval and would end there before worrying about going any further. Total time: 4.0 mins

Subject 6: The subject used the byui.edu search to find the information. Subject typed in University Relations, and got very confused at all of the options that came up. Subject remarked, Wow, this is really hard to find. I thought it was gonna be easy. The officiators had to point out the right link to the subject because they were quickly giving up. The subject found the Marketing and Branding How-to web pages and followed those for three or four web pages. Eventually, the subject stumbled upon the link. They remarked that they had no idea how they got there. Total time: 2.5 mins

Subject 7: The subject went straight to the bottom navigation of www.byui.edu. Subject said they always look for things down there. However, the subject quickly realized that they wouldnt be able to find what they needed there. The subject then turned to Google and said that the search function on the website was not good. After searching, BYUI University Relations, Poster, the subject downloaded a Word document with step-by-step instructions. They then followed a link to the template page and got stuck for a while. In the end, the officiators had to point the link to the form out to them. The subject was totally lost. Total time: 4.0 mins

11 6

Subject 8: The subject said the they work for the University Help Desk and never uses the byui.edu search function to find things. This subject immediately went to Google and searched BYU-Idaho Posters. The subject checked a PDF document that outlined the approval process. The subject went back to Google and added submission to the original Google search. At this point, the subject arrived at the Research and Creative Works Conference page on byui.edu. Going back to the search, the subject found the branding submission page on byui.edu. The officiators had to point out the submission link to the subject and they arrived. Total time: 2.5 mins

Subject 9: The subject scrolled to the bottom of byui.edus homepage. They looked for links at the bottom and found none. They then searched byui.edu for university relations poster submission. They found the research and creative works conference page. The subject backtracked and searched posters. The subject downloaded a Word document of the approval process. The subject found a line that said to email all submissions to branding@byui.edu. The subject considered this the end point. The officiators went with it. Total time: 1.5 mins

Subject 10: The subject searched byui.edu for posters. The subject scanned the list and went directly to the How do I Produce Communication Materials link. The subject then found the submission link and found the submission form. Total time: 45 sec

Pat te rns : -Several subjects saw Google as a more reliable search tool for the content on byui.edu than the byui.edu search bar. This included university employees as well.

-Subjects who searched university relations on byui.edu were generally unsuccessful while subjects who searched posters were generally successful.

17

-Students quickly grew frustrated when faced with multiple search results that did not specifically state what they were looking for.

-When asked if students would download the template on Publisher or InDesign, most said InDesign. Though, some said Publisher.

-Most subjects had no need or interest in designing a poster. Those who had an interest were able to find the poster faster.

Conc lus ions : -Theres a small group of students who have interest in or a need for branding through University Relations. Targeting these students is more important that targeting all students at BYU-Idaho.

-The byui.edu search function has been abandoned by many students. They use Google instead. -Subjects got lost very easily on byui.edu and after several minutes stumbled upon the right section.

11

Web Analysis

8

...This university will shine forth ever brighter as a beacon of righteousness and of inspired educational innovation.

President David A. Bednar

Using Adobe Omniture, our team looked over pages and pages of data to uncover what is really happening on the University Relations webpages. This is what we found:

Fi l e Downloads Repor t :

The analysis of this particular graph will briefly discuss the most popular downloads on the BYU-Idaho University Relations site. The top three most downloaded files on the site will be discussed. All of these files can be accessed via Adobe Omniture. 1. This particular file is a PowerPoint file that contains a pre-made template for ease and convenience of use. The template includes high quality images of different buildings on campus as well as a few other generic slides with the BYU-Idaho logo. There are many groups or even individuals on campus who may need or want to use this template because it is professional and can be used in a variety of settings. Trainings, informative presentations or even spiritual thoughts could all be appropriate usages of this file. It is clear that because of these facts, this file is the most popular. The question is whether University Relations would like this to be the most downloaded file.

2. This file is a very basic and simple image. It can also be used for a variety of things. It is difficult to tell why it is the second most popular download on the

19

pages. However, because of the simplicity of its nature, it is easy to tell that specific groups on campus could and would use something like this for a number of different purposes. 3. The third file is a poster template for approved BYU-Idaho posters. All posters must be submitted for approval and must use specific criteria before they can be used. This template allows anyone who wishes to get a poster approved use a premade document that makes the job simple. Considering all of the different organizations, groups, events, and societies on campus, it is surprising that it is not the most downloaded file from the BYU-Idaho site. Perhaps the only reason it is not is the fact that people dont make posters as often as they make PowerPoint presentations.

Pages Repor t :

The following graph shows the most visited pages within the branding and marketing page. These page links have the highest number of page views, visits, and unique visitors. There are a total of 16 pages; that averages out to 10,393 pageviews, 4,035 visits, and 3,281 unique visitors. What this means is that 10,393 people are viewing the pages, 4,035 people are going to the different pages, and the site is receiving 3,281 visits. This data is recorded from January 5th, until April 4th of the current year.

11 10

Publ i sher Downloads | InDes ign Downloads :

The statistics below show how many users are downloading the templates, and which designing programs are the ones of choice to use when designing posters. There has been 193 instances, or downloads combined on both Adobe InDesign, and Microsofts Publisher. The designing program of preference seems to be Adobes InDesign, which has a total of 132 instances, in comparison to Microsofts Publisher, which only has a total of 61 instances. All of these instances have been recorded from the beginning of this semester, January 5, 2015 until April 4, 2015. The most downloaded templates to create posters are on an InDesign file, such poster templates are 11x 17, with 40 instances. In comparison, the same Publisher template has 12 instances. A speculation for why the InDesign template downloads are higher could be because most people who are designing posters have an understanding of the InDesign program and how it works. Taking this into consideration, in order to make the template-download process easier, only one change needs to take place. By offering only the InDesign download option, the confusion that comes from too many options could be minimized.

111

Key Met r i c s Repor t :

Here we can see that there is more than double the amount of page views than visitors. This can be attributed to the round-a-bout cycle seen in the page flows analysis, which is next. The amount of Visitors compared to Unique Visitors is very similar. This means that each person doesnt need to come back after they have been there before. The majority are all unique visitors.

Next Page F low & Prev ious Page F low:

From the statistics shown on the opposite page, we can see that a good percentage (12.3%) are going to the contact page next from the /university-communications site. Followed closely behind that with 11.9% leaving the site entirely. The third place that the users go to next is the /university-communications/marketing-on-campus. We can gather several findings from this: most people are either looking for someone, how to market on campus or did not find what they were looking for with a lower percentage going to the templates. We can conclude from this that most people go to this site unaware of what they need to be doing and are

11 12

113

looking for direction or help. When comparing this to the previous page flow report we can see that there is somewhat of a circular cycle through the different pages. There are several that are coming from the /university-c o m m u n i c a t i o n s /marketing-on-campus. as well as the /university-c o m m u n i c a t i o n s /contact page and before that they have been cycling through the different pages which makes it look like most are confused on where they should be looking or what they are doing. There is a lot of back and forth that could be fixed.

11

Conclusions

14

Those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become legendary for their capacity to build the people around them and to add value wherever they serve.

President Henry B. Eyring

In sum, these are the main conclusions that our team was able to make after analyzing the University Relations web pages by conducting a focus group and using Adobe Omniture:

-Theres a small group of students who have interest or need in branding through University Relations. Targeting these students is more important that targeting all students at BYU-Idaho. However, these students are spread out and difficult to find.

-The byui.edu search function has been abandoned by many students. They use Google instead.

-Subjects get lost very easily on byui.edu and after a while, stumble upon the right section.

-Although our results suggest the previous conclusions, we are certain that a focus group composed of students that better fit the criteria would be more knowledgeable and successful in the process than the previous students.

-Most people who are creating posters already know how to use the template, and prefer InDesign.

-Most users are Unique Users

-Most users go to this site unaware of what they need to be doing and are looking for direction or help.

115

We hope that this booklet will be both informative and instructive for Brigham Young University-Idahos University Relations Department. The content herein has been gathered carefully and personally for that end. We hope that the University may be able to better perform their necessary duties as a result of this research.

The bottom line is that University Relations is a key part of the university. Its imperative to the overall image of the university for this organization to run smoothly and efficiently. This analysis will help that to become a reality.

Wed like to thank University Relations and wish them luck on all their future endeavers!

11 16