On the web, how do you communicate over 200 years of history and everything you have to offer while speaking to diverse audiences at the same time? You bring together stakeholder after stakeholder and the information architecture expertise of Dayspring to make it happen.
Client
St. Mary’s Seminary and University, the first Catholic university established in the United States.
Situation
When Brent Laytham, Director of Ecumenical Studies, first approached us, the St. Mary’s website was outdated and hard-to-use. More than that, the content of the old website made it difficult to understand the breadth and depth of everything St. Mary’s has to offer.
Execution
There’s so much to St. Mary’s. The seminary provides preparation for candidates entering the Catholic priesthood, the Ecumenical Institute educates people of all denominations seeking further theological study, and the Center for Continuing Formation provides the perfect physical space for reflecting and learning through conferences and other special programs. Not to mention the Knott Library and the Associated Archives, both full of resources for the curious learner.
Our team facilitated a series of discovery sessions with over two dozen stakeholders across the whole university to nail down an information architecture that would make sense to all of their target audiences – from potential priest to conference organizer to studious researcher and everyone in between. To execute this, our team diligently researched to figure out best practices for the seminary space. We also applied our keen design sense by choosing images and visuals which give a personable look and feel to the site.
Additionally, we trained a number of their staff to update various parts of the website to eliminate bottlenecks on St. Mary’s end. Updates won’t go through one IT guy on this WordPress platform built website.
After launching, we quickly heard positive feedback about the St. Mary’s redesign. Kind words like “The new version of the website is stunning!” and “So much more navigable and categories are more intuitive” and “Looks fantastic!”
We’re humbled by this encouragement, and grateful to live out our calling by partnering with them help other people live out theirs.