The London School of Economics and Political Science: website review

The London School of

Economics and

Political Science:

website review

REPORT & RECOMMENDATIONS: FINAL

London School of Economics and Political Science

Monday, 11 May 2009

Michael Guida & Andrew Massey

[email protected] / [email protected]

020 7426 8900

2 | Precedent | 11 May 2009

Contents

Summary 3

About this report 4

Context and drivers 5

Review process and engagements 7

LSE audiences 8

Findings and themes 10

Vision and purpose 25

Principles for change 26

Recommendations 28

Delivery challenges and risks 36

Annex 1: Review process engagements – who we have spoken to 40

Annex 2: personas (typical user profiles) 45

Annex 3: site maps and page principles

Annex 4: homepage design concepts


Summary

There is a major opportunity now for the LSE to mirror

your standing and reputation as an international leader

in social sciences teaching and research with the quality

of your offer online.

Through an extensive research process, a clear picture

of the requirements for external and internal audiences

has crystallised. There is a need for a more coherent and

bold approach – and the LSE is gearing up for such a

change.

However, there are challenges ahead, particularly the

need for a broad, collaborative corporate effort, across

the LSE boundaries, for the benefit of all.

Seven recommendations have been made here, which

seek to reinvent and sustain the LSE online, ensuring

the School stands out from its competitors and supports

staff and students effectively.

Recommendations

1. Improve site structure, navigation and orientation

2. Differentiate the LSE from others and create a strong user experience with a bold

new design

3. Clarify and articulate LSE’s positioning and personality

4. Improve the findability of content

5. Make more use of functionality, especially a people-finder tool and video

6. Simplify login processes to internal systems

7. Take control of content quality, publishing processes and team responsibilities


About this report

Aims

This report aims to gather all key deliverables and contextual insight developed through

the review of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) website. These

deliverables and the recommendations for change should enable an achievable transition

from the current position.

The report is intended to be a trigger for a programme of change at the LSE driven by the

Communications team working in partnership with web editors throughout the School.

In addition, we have offered a new vision and purpose for the LSE site that should sustain

the endeavour for the longer term.

Audiences

The report is for the Project Board:

— Catherine Baldwin

— Catherine Bellamy

— Nicole Boyce

— Stephen Emmott

— Robin Hoggard

— Claire Sanders

And Richard Meheux, production manager Web Services


Context and drivers

The LSE enjoys global recognition and an outstanding reputation that sets it apart from

its academic competitors. The LSE has some distinctive characteristics among UK

universities:

— It is highly international with about two-thirds of its students from overseas

— It is the foremost teaching and research centre for the social sciences

— Only 17% of its income comes directly from the British Government

— It has more postgraduate students than undergraduates and is very heavily

oversubscribed, especially at undergraduate level.

— An explicit part of the LSE mission is to transfer academic knowledge to the wider

world to benefit all.

Online, however, the LSE may need to work harder to distinguish itself and create a truly

useful resource for external and internal audiences. Internal LSE stakeholders often

criticise the site although there has up to now been no consensus on the problem or what

should change. The views and needs of site users, especially external audiences has only

partly been established (through personas developed for the Research and Expertise

section).

The Communications team at LSE commissioned Precedent in December 2008 to review

the current online offer to determine how to improve the site to meet the information

needs of key audiences.

Current purpose of the site

The purpose of the current site is described in the project brief as follows: “to meet the

information needs of target audiences in pursuit of the School’s goals.” However, the

online landscape at LSE actually reflects the organisational structure with some 350 sites

that meet the information needs of departments. The culture of the LSE means that

academic departments and research centres control their online communications rather

than the central External Relations Division. And the need for, or role of, a corporate

voice at LSE is unclear.

The initial briefing to Precedent suggested that there needs to be less emphasis on student

recruitment, and more on transfer to non-academic audiences of knowledge derived from

research and expertise, in relation to most UK universities.

The objectives of the website review

This work is intended to achieve the following objectives:

1. determine how the LSE website can be developed to meet the information needs

of target audiences in pursuit of the School’s goals (some of which are to deliver

information to audiences who are not consciously looking for it) at least as well as


its main competitors, if not better. Identify the information needs of target

audiences, and the School's goals and objectives

2. evaluate the LSE website against its primary goal – to meet the information needs

of target audiences in pursuit of the School's goals – with reference to comparator

websites

3. offer a measured and achievable transition from the current position to an

improved solution

4. create a set of deliverables including:

— a report and recommendations including personas for key audiences

— a new static homepage design for external audiences with site map

— a new static homepage design for internal audiences with site map

Prior to this work starting the LSE decided that the current web presence should be

rationalised to give a site for external audiences and site for internal audiences (subject to

support from this review).


Review process and engagements

The process

1. Desk research:

— review of current site and competitor /comparator websites

— review of previous LSE website research, including director interviews and

undergraduate and graduate/postgraduate survey data

— review of site stats

— review of LSE literature, prospectuses, strategic plan and corporate videos

2. Core stakeholder engagement:

— workshop 1 (current site review)

— face-to-face interviews

— design and positioning review with Pro-Director

3. Wider stakeholder engagement:

— workshop 2a (content, information architecture and personas workshop)

— face-to-face interviews

— questionnaire response review

— workshop 2b (wider consultation)

— face-to-face interviews and by phone

4. User engagement:

— internal focus group (academic staff, academic support staff, undergraduate

students)

— external focus group (undergraduates, graduates/postgraduates)

— phone interviews (undergraduates, graduates/postgraduates)

5. Visual design development

6. Low-fi user testing of design

Who we have spoken to

See Annex 1 for full list of all those involved in research consultations.


LSE audiences

Through this work, external and internal LSE audiences have been identified as follows:

External audiences

Primary audiences: central to the financial and reputational status of the LSE

— Potential students (undergraduate, graduate/postgraduate, research, summer

school, executive, international)

— Media and other opinion makers

— Business *

— Alumni (promotion and benefits, and login to secure site)

These audiences have been designated as priorities in order to focus efforts on their needs

in particular. These needs are captured in the persona work which is part of this report.

All four primary audiences contribute to the financial and reputational status of the LSE.

* Note on policy makers (which may be a subset of Business, but further work is required

to understand this group and their needs): a small, specialist and very important group,

chiefly senior UK civil servants and international bodies, who tend to do business through

personal networks. It is believed they are unlikely to be primary website users, although

catering for their specific needs both online and offline will be important.

Secondary audiences

— Donors

— Academic partners and non-LSE academics

— Prospective staff

— Parents

— Schools

— Employers

— Suppliers

— General public


Internal audiences

Primary audiences

— LSE academic staff

— LSE academic support staff

— LSE students (undergraduate, graduate/postgraduate, research, international)

Personas (typical user profiles)

Personas are tools that encapsulate typical users, their motivations, behaviours and

online goals. Personas will be used by LSE communicators, especially website designers

and developers, to ensure that all online developments are focused on the goals that users

want to achieve, and the way they want content provided.

Seven user personas have been developed based on the user research and they reflect the

primary external and internal audiences identified.

Three personas are based on earlier work that the LSE has done with WUP for the

Research and Expertise section of the site. These are for: academic, media and business.

All personas have been developed to define distinct goals. They inform the

recommendations and other key deliverables including the site maps and designs.

Definitions

— ‘Potential student’: covers prospective candidates for undergraduate,

postgraduate, research, summer school, executive or international programmes

(overseas summer school, or double degrees)

— ‘Media’: covers media, thought leaders , research councils and researchers in

government

— ‘Business’: covers business and government users who are seeking consultancy

— ‘Alumni’: covers all those who have graduated from the School with an academic

qualification

— ‘LSE academic’: this persona will cover all academic users including teaching and

research staff

— ‘LSE academic support’: covers departmental managers, support staff and

corporate services teams

— ‘LSE student’: includes undergraduate, graduate/postgraduate and research

students including international students

See Annex 2 for the seven personas.


Findings and themes

Overview of the research

Having spent many hours consulting stakeholders and site users, and reviewing the

current LSE offer online, set out here is an overview of the things that work, and things

that don’t.

What’s working (and should be retained)?

— The level of detail in the site’s content is well received, especially by potential

students looking for course information

— Podcasts, particularly of the public events, but also internal course lectures

— School-based systems: Moodle and library online systems

What’s not working?

— Structure and information architecture: is complex and inconsistent, focused

around department silos with little opportunity for exploration

— Navigability: inability to find information (even after finding it previously),

unconventional and inconsistent across the site, lack of cross-linking

— Search engine: poor quality results, out-dated information

— Quality of design and overall online experience: not befitting of the School. “It

doesn’t look like a premiere research institution. It looks like a school site put

together by 5th form students.”

— Quality content: is lacking and has become a major headache to manage.

Processes and style guides are not being adhered to. “There’s an awful state of

anarchy now.”

What’s missing?

— A clear positioning and attitude online that enhances the reputation of the

School, marking you out as special and distinctive. “My principal concern is that

this does not convey a good overall impression of the brand... it’s dated and

staid.”

— A sense of LSE life, the excitement, campus and environments

— Use of new technology to enhance the experience and bring out the magic

ingredients of the LSE – its people and their work

— A shared sense of direction and leadership. “None of this will work unless the

School articulates a clear mission, vision and institutional strategic objectives

which it has communicated and shared with its staff”


Precedent site review observations – what we think

“For a university with such a high reputation our website lets us down enormously.”

We feel the current site is not doing justice to the LSE as a world-class institution. The

visual appearance, language, tone of voice and ‘presence’ of the website does not meet

expectations of the School’s stature, reputation or resources.

In particular, we think that the site:

— does not convey excellence, quality and intellectual leadership

— does not anticipate user journeys or goals, and confuses audiences

— does not support internal users effectively

The opportunity is to rationalise and rebuild a more purposeful and inspiring web

presence that can be sustained by central and devolved teams in a co-ordinated effort

across internal organisational boundaries. Communications are leading this challenge.

It appears that, for many years, web-based communications has not been supported by

adequate human or financial resources, both centrally and at department levels within

LSE.

Usability observations

Website usability should be based on human-computer interaction best practice. The

navigability and general usability issues found by the LSE’s website users are due mainly

to lack of adherence to these principles:

— Consistent top level navigation displaying the structured taxonomy – the main

sections disappear when one is selected

— Lower-level navigation conventions – sub-section navigation is usually on the

left, with related content links on the right – LSE pages use the right column for

section navigation

— Orientation devices that give the user feedback as to where they are within the

navigation, e.g. “on” states in main navigation

— Consistent link colour, e.g. LSE’s homepage has 6 link styles

— Breadcrumb should demonstrate the actual ‘path’ to the currently selected page –

often the site does not have the first level linked from the homepage

— Use of the logo as a home ‘safety net’

— Search box location should be upper right through convention

— A-Z lists should be a last resort –hypermedia supersedes telephone directory

listing approaches, which are now largely redundant

— Consistency of design across site – should now improve with the implementation

of a new CMS and templates, enforced with robust processes and support


Competitor / comparator observations

We have reviewed a series of web sites that were identified by site users in the

consultation to better understand how online communications are being used

innovatively by other academic institutions with a global reputation:

UK: UCL, Warwick, SOAS, Cambridge, Edinburgh

USA: Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Ohio State, University of Pennsylvania

What does this review tell us about the LSE web effort?

— In many ways, the institutions reviewed are performing better online than the

LSE, with Stanford and Ohio shining out as leaders. The basics of navigability and

information taxonomy are executed more effectively by competitors, but the LSE

site does have some strong points (podcasts of public events, the level of

programme detail) which are somewhat lost currently

— Warwick and Pennsylvania have strong homepages, but are uninspiring beyond.

LSE must ensure the new site delivers a consistently engaging experience

throughout

— In comparison, the LSE site does not make sufficient impact or convey its values

and role in debate and societal change

— Intellectual leadership and engagement with the real world is not communicated

sufficiently

— The overall impression is of a surprisingly ordinary site, with a slightly chaotic

and unprofessional feel


UK institutions

Comparator Observations

UCL

www.ucl.ac.uk

Mentioned many

times by interviewees

and has strong

presence.

— Homepage has rotating, large impactful images

aimed chiefly at potential students, and content links

are clean and simple

— However, there is a lack of clear core message or

positioning

— There is a good, clear breadcrumb trial

— ‘Top searches’ tag cloud is used in Current Students

Video channel about life and study at UCL for

prospective students

Warwick

www.warwick.ac.uk

Strong page

framework, but

uninspiring beyond

the homepage. User

generated content

community systems a

focus.

— Homepage going for impact – minimal content,

minimum number of links, large photographs

— ‘Channels’ based loosely on audiences, but not

explicit segregation. Clear focus on international

student recruitment however

— Writing tends to be long, lengthy paragraphs often

without sub-heading and bullets

— Occasional successful use of Flash slideshows

— Gimmicky widgets such as pop-out ‘help’ navigation

and non-required column fold-downs, easily missed

— Intelligent predictive ‘live’ search

— Busy and comprehensive blog and forum sections

SOAS

www.soas.ac.uk

Solid, well built and

very usable... but

ultimately an

uninspiring website

— Homepage has no rotating content and photography

is relatively benign, directory style navigation

— Photography is unconvincing and gives generic

university-style atmosphere with lack of its own

personality

— Rigid page templates gives consistent experience

throughout site, but limited repertoire of layouts

gives a repetitive feel after a while

— Strong navigation using clearly understood

conventions and good information architecture

makes usability very successful

— Some consideration of information layout at a page

layout makes digestion easier, but many pages lack

evidence of writing for the web


Cambridge

www.cam.ac.uk

Well functioning

website, but not very

inspiring –

capitalises on

traditional heritage

and values

— Homepage lacks visual impact – use of imagery is

minimal, but does change on rotation.

— Audience ‘channels’ from homepage, plus college and

faculty doorways

— Evident traditional values, clear message: historic

and established, confident

— Poor use of imagery throughout site, but slightly

better in Prospective Students section

— Navigation very easy, adhering to conventions with

good breadcrumb

— Search results are slow, but accurate, give weighting,

and filtering options as well as related links

— Very strong 800th Anniversary microsite: impactful,

clear and consistent messages, campaign driven

identity

Edinburgh

www.ed.ac.uk

An impressive

website with a well-

considered

architecture and a

good introduction to

the university and

city.

— Good structure, strong initial focus, and obvious

audience routes

— Nice variety of page layouts with a global framework

— Different layouts seem to be specifically designed for

content requirements, rather than content having to

adhere to existing templates

— Copy is well-written, and with the web in mind –

good headlines, introductory overviews, sub-heads,

short paragraphs and snappy prose


US institutions

Comparator Observations

Yale

www.yale.edu

Professional-looking

collection of different

sites for colleges and

departments. Doesn’t

convey the experience

of the institution as a

whole

— Homepage uses triptych of impactful photography on

rotation, encouraging campus exploration. Otherwise

a simple if not plain homepage with the only content

a single news story

— ‘Gateways’ for wide ranging, tightly defined

audiences –structured lists of links applicable for

each audience, mapping to conventional architecture

— Different style of sites for each of the colleges,

assumes user understands the institution structure.

Means it is hard to get a feel for the institution as a

whole

— Good level of quality throughout each college/school,

with consistency at departmental level

— Admissions requires selection of school or college

before proceeding, i.e. each school acts in a ‘silo’

distinct from others

Princeton

www.princeton.edu

Confusing

information

architecture makes

audience tasks

difficult to fulfil.

Consistent, but

ordinary design

style.

— Unusual homepage layout – crest in centre of the

page, with the main focus on the right had side of the

page. Too many options and internal/external links

— Photography is in an unusual position, small and

extreme proportion format means it gets lost

— Consistent use of brand design elements (colour,

layout) within ‘main’ site

— General IA is poor – it is almost impossible to find

courses, though admissions process is clear

— Main audiences have distinct websites as do

departments, but latter follow a similar style

— Undergraduate admissions site is high impact, with

good staff and student profiles


Harvard

www.harvard.edu

Good starting page,

promises much, but

fails to deliver a

coherent experience.

A mish-mash of

individual sites.

— Impressive homepage with large, dominant focus

image with rotation of stories that are news and

research led

— Narrow top-level navigation, centred around

university structure

— Destinations are distinct websites with variety of

designs of differing quality, but no cohesive presence

— No audience channels, but evidence of some effort

here within schools’ levels

Stanford

www.stanford.edu

A global league

competitor with a

benchmark website.

Use of technology is

natural and

unforced.

— Well laid out, interesting, and impactful homepage –

an immediate visual introduction to the campus and

life on it

— Well-considered web2.0-style typography, with good

use of whitespace giving a calm and confident feel

— Rigorous and consistent use of design and brand.

Strict layout grid means pages work together well

when traversing the site

— Strong positioning revolving around established

tradition with 21st century, innovative outlook

— Nice use of technology (JQuery) on homepage and

elsewhere to create slideshow and lightbox, avoiding

gimmicks

— Conventional navigation options mean the site is

immediately usable, plus dropdown navigation

options provide quicker, more direct access to lower

level pages if required

— ‘Channels’ for audiences – each has a landing page to

direct to distinct sections

— Good and appropriate use of video and audio

content, as well as accessible javascript-based

enhancements

— Clear copy, written for the web


Ohio State

www.osu.edu

An impressive site.

Easy, slick progress

through pages and

content. Strong

interactive options

and good graphic

design.

— Not an obvious competitor, but mentioned by

prospective graduates/postgraduates in

questionnaire responses

— Homepage makes use of impactful images leading to

interesting stories

— Long homepage, but easy to digest due to well

considered layout, good use of whitespace, and

consideration of the page as a whole rather than sum

of parts

— Consistent style of brand elements – colour and

typography. Clear and succinct key messages

showing obvious values

— Mix of audience-based and traditional taxonomy in

the main navigation. Good, well-considered

information architecture

— Interesting use of tag clouds for most used content by

each audience group

— Extensive use of web 2.0 – Facebook, Wikipedia, own

YouTube channel, collaborative Flickr-style photo

sharing, social bookmarking, in-page video ‘talking

head’ testimonials

University of

Pennsylvania

www.upenn.edu

Effective brand

positioning and

seductive homepage,

although not

sustained within the

site.

— Lavish homepage featuring large high quality

photography on rotation with elegant typography,

plus news and events content

— Clear and immediate brand values and messages –

user is left in no doubt of the university’s positioning

and attitude

— Clear and well-ordered main navigation, expanded

out to give details of section contents, confirming

user understanding of taxonomy

— Audience ‘gateways’ provided

— Lower-level pages don’t live up to expectation

produced by quality of homepage, but do deliver the

content proficiently


LSE stakeholder themes

Overall themes from internal stakeholders at the LSE:

— External and internal content is muddled

— Academic departments have taken over and they are all doing their own thing to

different standards

— It’s messy and conveys an unprofessional image of the School

— There is indifference to homepage and no pride or excitement in the site in

general

— Devolved publishing teams want support from the communications team and are

broadly happy for more control and standards for design, structure and content

— There is a lack of leadership and direction in online communications


Theme Observations

Structure and

navigation

Poor and inconsistent navigation: the main complaint is that the site is

a series of islands of content with no overarching navigation and

structural framework especially at deeper levels. Different parts of the

site have different navigational systems. Breadcrumb trails are not

useful or consistent.

The homepage is the central navigation point to which users have to

return to find their way. Many users will enter the site from search

engines and direct links to deep parts of the site with little clear

navigation/orientation

Structure reflects organisational structure: content is arranged around

organisational needs and structures rather than user needs and goals,

so related content is not gathered together but spread across a series of

internal department ‘sites’ e.g. an undergraduates page has links to

prospectus site, academic registrar site, financial support site,

accommodation site.

Search is poor with many out of date pages being found. “The search

facility is rubbish. I use Google.”

Design and

templates

“We have to rein people in”.

The design quality of pages varies widely as you click through the site.

Many websites within the main corporate website, each competing and

clashing with the next. No consistency of style, with academic

departments running their own pages autonomously. “Democracy gone

mad!”

Templates are needed but with flexibility in terms of layout (rather

than design).

Content Some content is felt to be poor quality and letting down the whole

online effort.

Content is often out-of-date and is raised as a serious and common

problem. Broken links are widespread.

Content is duplicated and inconsistent on various parts of the site (e.g.

Staff contact details in experts directory, phone directory and

department sites; and events information on department pages and on

news/events pages).

Pages are too long and wordy and poorly structured for scan-reading.


Technical and scientific jargon is used too frequently.

There is a limited call by some for key pages or sections to be available

in other languages.

Related content is not available to encourage users to move across the

site and explore other areas.

Publishing processes, accountability and ownership responsibilities are

unclear. Personnel changes mean that content can be published and

then abandoned. Content is not being reviewed, deleted, archived

routinely to ensure it is up-to-date.

Functionality Online payment tools are perceived as unrefined, although usable.

Room booking functionality is singled out as particularly tricky to use.

There is interest in the use of new technology including (in order of

perceived need): video, podcasts, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, email

subscription services.

Personalisation of the internal audience site was of interest to many

staff to give a ‘My LSE’ custom perspective to logged-in users.

Links to login areas are not explained clearly and login screens are

scattered across the internal pages. Login screens do not explain what

the feature is behind the screen and who can use it.

The term ‘intranet’ causes confusion as it means different things to

different people.

Publishing

support

“We’re not marketing experts and need help to do what we want to do”.

Publishers are keen to have guidance, support and help from the

central communications team.

Help with external audience video production is a particular need.

No-one is using the style guides that have been produced.

There is confusion about what images can and can’t be used. Standards

for photos of academics are needed and they need to be kept up to date.

There is insufficient resource in publishing teams and no cover when

people are away.

Research centres are buying in support to help manage their sites.


External user themes: potential students

The personas in large part capture the key themes and needs of users. However, the main

findings from discussions with potential students are summarised here.

Theme Observations

Perceptions

of LSE

Quality of the LSE offer is generally considered to be second to

none, but some undergrads are clearly frightened off by high

entry requirements, fees and acceptance rates

Quality means: reputation, focus on social sciences, experience

of staff, diversity of students, central London location

The stimulating intellectual buzz and challenging academic

environment of staff and students is highly attractive

Keywords used to describe LSE: the best, high quality, excellent

reputation, academic, serious, challenging environment,

international

Negatives that might put people off: overly-theoretical

programmes, fees, expense of central London living

Decision-

making

Word of mouth recommendation is the most important factor

League table rankings are also influential (Times, FT,

independent websites)

Links with industry and government, and job prospects

The internet is used for researching universities

High profile speakers are a big pull for graduates/postgraduates

Events and open days

Structure and content of programmes is seen to be excellent


Website

impressions

The website is important but the hard-copy prospectus is still

vital particularly for undergraduates (in the UK?)

The needs of graduate/postgraduate and undergraduates is

broadly the same, i.e. most important is to be able to easy find

programme details, entry requirements, fees, application

process, event information including open days, and ordering a

prospectus

News and events is of limited interest, at least as

presented/articulated at present

Undergraduates are interested in seeing campus-life

photography and knowing about facilities, as are

graduates/postgraduates to a lesser degree

Programme-specific student testimonials and stories are desired

Potential students identify with audience-specific labelling like

‘undergraduate’ or ‘postgraduate’ on the homepage.

‘Programmes’ is the most important section.

The overall impression of the current site is that it is OK, and

some say they like it (especially programme information detail).

It shows the London location effectively, but there is no sense of

excitement or anything special that attracts attention

Contact email addresses are not easy to find to be able to follow

up an application


LSE internal user themes: academic/academic support staff and

students

The personas in large part capture the key themes and needs of users. However, the main

findings from discussions with staff and students are summarised here.

Theme Observations

Perceptions

of LSE: staff

Perceptions

of LSE:

students

Positive: shared sense of purpose and belonging; flat structure

Negative: increasing bureaucracy, less face-to-face time, reliance on

email, inertia to change and evolve

Positive: range of opportunities, access to high quality academics

and research, London life, international atmosphere, modern and

business-like, continuity between academic/social/extracurricular

activities, “Not just a university, more of a platform”

Negative: digging to find information, unfriendliness and lack of

community, overly career-oriented, fragmentation of student

body/systems/departments, lack of School-wide leadership and

coherence


Main issues Consensus that separating “public” and “internal” (staff and student

focussed) information is a good thing. Acknowledgement that

internal information and links dilute and confuse external

audiences.

Dislike of the term “Intranet” for internal website. People

understand intranet as a logon-only website and/or only accessible

from within School network.

General view that LSEforYou provides good functionality, but is not

particularly user friendly (“lets user fend for themselves” - gives

loads of links without any structure or considered thought).

Concern amongst many that the Internal website will be “another

thing” for them to use – they currently have 1) logon system

messages, 2) LSE website, 3) LSEforYou, 4) Moodle plus others

applications to manage every day. Users would like to see this all

rationalised somehow. Some asked whether the internal website

would be instead of LSEforYou – and many felt it should be.

A simplified (single sign-on) process would please all users as

getting into LSEforYou, Moodle and the library is the first thing to

do in the morning

The concept of personalisation is liked although the nature of this

feature was not explored thoroughly

A people directory (with a phone directory as a subset of the

database) is high priority for many users

HR site particularly hard to find information on

Room booking functionality hard to use

Events, Moodle, Library and News are common to both staff and

students

Students would like improved events calendar and better promotion

of podcasts. Plus there is a risk of missing important

announcements because internal audience ‘launch pages’ do not flag

the major ones


Vision and purpose

The current purpose of the site is “to meet the information needs of target audiences in

pursuit of the School’s goals.” We think this purpose needs to be developed further to give

more business clarity to why the LSE web presence is worth investing in and sustaining.

The LSE site should be more than a task-based environment that delivers on the user

goals defined by the persona work. This is key of course, but it’s not enough.

In addition, the website must deliver a potent LSE brand purpose and personality, by

focusing on people, debate and social outcomes. There must be a strong sense of what it is

that makes the LSE so special.

The internal audience site should be much more utilitarian, helping staff and students get

things done more easily and efficiently, promoting collaboration and engagement.

External audience site proposition

“A website to be proud of”

“Show that grey matter can produce vibrant things”

— To convey the energy and personality of the LSE to all primary audiences to

clearly differentiate the School from competitors

— To promote and market LSE programmes to prospective students to attract the

right ones

— To showcase and disseminate research, news and events to the media and all

other audiences

— To offer consultancy and training services to business and government clients

Internal audience site proposition

“A one-stop-shop for tools and information I need in my daily work and studies”

— To act as a gateway to all non-public daily support tools (Moodle, LSEforYou,

library, people-finder) alongside useful policies, service information and

resources

— To offer news, announcements, event information on public pages

— To enable collaboration and sharing on non-public pages

— To offer an up-to-date people-finder tool to enable quick look-up of LSE staff and

students (also vital for the external audience site)


Principles for change

The principles for change identified here are the underpinning project foundations and

the basis for successful progress.

1. Balancing student recruitment with transfer of knowledge

Students are still key to LSE business and income, so attracting the right students is

paramount. Balanced with this must be the emphasis on the transfer to non-academic

audiences of knowledge from research, to fulfil social responsibility and reputation

building objectives.

2. External and internal audience delineation

There is consensus that the LSE web presence has more value and purpose if external and

internal audiences have their own special homepage destinations. The term ‘intranet’ is

probably not the right way of referring to the internal audience site as the perception is

that this refers to a restricted area only.

3. Constraining the number of websites

A new policy will ensure that the LSE web presence will be composed of the following

components only:

— corporate website

— corporate internal website including log-in areas

— areas for each academic department x21

— areas for each research centre x17

As such, each of the 300+ current “websites” will exist within one of these newly defined

areas, bringing far more structure than previously.

Internal audiences have expressed a strong preference for a simplified system – the new

solution must not add extra layers or complexity.

4. Implementation of the V4 template

All design and templating recommendations will work within the V4 template page

framework developed by the Communications team. This will ensure the

recommendations can be interpreted and delivered successfully.

5. Integrate, don’t duplicate

Systems and production processes should be streamlined to ensure efficiencies e.g. single

source people directory including phone numbers and course description content, for

example. To do this, academic departments need to share ownership and take a more

corporate view.

In addition, internal teams do not want to deal with another new system – the new

internal audience website must ‘feel’ like it brings systems together, simplifying access,


even though initially it will not rationalise the many internal systems including

LSEforYou and Moodle.

The internal audience site should become the primary internal communications tool to

reach staff and students. Site announcements can replace email, which is currently

overloaded and low impact.

6. Help academic departments lead the way

The department of Government is doing great things with their content, spending about 3

days’ a week creating and managing new material including video of student experiences,

Hot Seat pod casts which showcase academics, setting up FaceBook groups. Similarly, the

Law department has taken a considered and strategic approach by committing to a well-

skilled editor who is producing a professional quality site.

These teams would like support from the central communications team with all this, but

can set an example for others to follow. Such departments could also be ambassadors for

change.


Recommendations

We have made seven recommendations to improve and sustain a new web service:


2. Differentiate the LSE from others and create a strong user experience with a bold

new design



5. Make more use of functionality, especially a people-finder tool and video



Each of these recommendations is detailed below.


Annex 3 shows the detailed site maps and page principles for the external and internal

audience sites.

These recommendations come from the guiding principle that user goals are more

important than organisational structures. LSE goals are of course integrated too, but to

achieve a good customer experience the LSE must give users what they want, and quickly.

The external site is not for the LSE, it is about the LSE and what you can do for people.

So the new site maps move away from a flat structure that is modelled around the LSE

internal operation to one that is based on topics/subjects and user tasks.

Key features of new external audience information architecture

— Logical, traditional taxonomy – every page sits under the main navigation options

— Content broadly grouped by audience type, but not to exclusion

— Link options kept within the best practice magic number of 7±3 wherever

possible

— Direct and quick access to programme information – the most important page for

the main primary audience

— Global ‘website switch’ navigation to allow movement between departments and

the main LSE website


New pages have been added, following prospective students’ feedback, and the detail

required for the programme information pages is enhanced as follows:

— more details on alumni and successes

— student stories and testimonials

— better campus and facilities tour with larger images

— ranking information (programme and university level)

Key features of new internal audience information architecture

— Quick access to online tools (Moodle, LSEforYou, Library) including some tools

which ‘live’ currently within LSEforYou

— Separation of staff- and student-only content, but still accessible to both

— Function- or content-led naming (exact terms to be confirmed, but not support

department names)

— A sense of gravity ... a truly useful destination

While the information sets for the external and internal audience sites may still be

represented as below, the user experience is of an integrated offer with far less

inconsistency, duplication and fragmentation.


2. Differentiate the LSE from others and create a strong user

experience with a bold new design

Annex 4 shows the homepage design concepts for external audience and internal

audience sites.

There is a desire for the LSE website to be different and to demonstrate its international

leadership in social sciences. LSE is so much more than a university because it:

— shapes the global debate

— delivers definitive answers to the most relevant social issues

— transforms society for the better

— seeks to know the causes of things


There is an opportunity now to more clearly express who you are and where you are going

– to unravel the ‘reputation’ that all internal and external audiences mention, but often

can’t articulate.

This work is not about your logo, nor should it seek to re-invent who you are. It’s about

bringing to life your values and mission in the way that the corporate videos have begun

to. We think such work would focus on your people, the debate, or the social outcomes of

your research. But whatever the focus, the intention is to establish what makes LSE so

special.

Well known

Research excellence

Serious

Academic

Leading

No frills

Direct

International

Reliable

World-class

Dynamic

Flexible

Multinational

Relevant

Actionable ideas

Diverse

Cosmopolitan

Creative thought

Apolitical

ChallengingRelentless questioning and creative energy

Relevant

Actionable and important research

CosmopolitanEmbrace diverse perspectives

LeadersRigour and quality through and through

LSE design directions


And this work will provide a shared way of talking about yourselves, confidently and

clearly. It will provide a tone of voice and visual toolkit that will operate across all media

and channels. Ultimately it is a motive force for LSE staff, students as well as a point of

reference for external audiences.

The website design concepts have begun to set down some principles that will help to

further define the LSE’s positioning and personality.


Tagging

Much more than just a web 2.0 trend, tagging of content produces tangible benefits by

improving search results and enabling automated content relationships. It is an approach

especially suited to content that is non-traditionally structured. Tagging will improve user

experience by making sense of information content and facilitating movement between

areas of interest – in essence improving the ability to ‘browse’ the site. We would

recommend tagging by keyword and rigidly defined subject areas (or ‘topics’), and also by

department and target audiences that would allow most-popular content lists to be

dynamically generated.

However, tagging the current content set is a significant task in itself, which can’t be

automated. It will be an ongoing commitment and the responsibility of content owners to

maintain.

Search

We are assuming that the new CMS has built in search functionality that will improve

search performance and results presentation (which is currently non-standard). The

pages that lie outside the CMS will require a crawling http-based solution such as Google

Mini that the School is now using.

However, search performance is also a facet of content quality. Content publishing

processes must include the review, removal and deletion of content to ensure the right

content can be surfaced by the search engine.

A-Z lists

These are used widely on the current site and are not a bad idea as long as they are only

used as complementary ways of linking and not navigation devices.


5. Make more use of functionality, especially a people-finder

tool and video

People-finder tool

The ‘killer application’, in many ways, for both external audiences and internal ones.

What is required is a new integrated system that houses phone numbers, email addresses,

portrait photographs of staff and biographical information as a minimum. How this tool

relates to the Research and Expertise directory is important. The principle is that a single

source of data should populate all web-based and other tools and applications for the

LSE.

Video

Video should be a key feature of the site as it is expected by many external users. There is

likely to be a growing need to beef-up capacity for audio/visual production at LSE and to

create clear policies on how video should be used for external and internal audiences.

Video can be used to:

— cover public lectures (with brief highlights for the external audience homepage)

— tell success stories by getting academics and students on camera talking about

their enthusiasms and what their research means for the public

— give students a chance to show what life is like at LSE

— allow alumni to show where they are now and give prospective students a sense of

destination and careers

— cover internal lectures for use on Moodle

We would recommend Flash format to give the optimal user experience.

E-mail newsletters and alerts

LSE should be producing a high-quality corporate newsletter for external audiences

alongside departmental and research institute ones which can be templated and styled for

design consistency. Alumni may need an improved specialist service here. The internal

News & Views could become a largely distributed by email with lo-fi hard copies perhaps

for the small number of internal teams who are not on email. Plasma screens may also be

an under-used method of internal communication.

Social media

If debate and conversation are the lifeblood of the LSE, web 2.0 technologies are a perfect

enabler for online exchanges. While this is an important area to develop, it should not

take priority over getting the core site content improved and better managed.

There are opportunities to improve podcasting, make use of Flickr’s photo site, develop an

official YouTube channel and to take ownership of your Wikipedia entry. Supporting a

select set of star academic bloggers is also worth considering, but only with those few

personalities who can really write and have the time and energy to keep it going.


RSS feeds

While these are currently being used for public lectures and events, they could be could be

offered more widely for news and careers for example.

Transactional tools

The interface design for room booking and online payment tools could be improved

although this is not a priority as long as they perform reliably and are reasonably easy to

use.


Login

For the internal audience site a rationalised single sign-on login process would be a big

win with staff and students but the effort involved needs to be weighed up against other

priorities. Andy Coulthard suggested that this should be technically achievable.

As a minimum, however, the password protected areas of the internal site should be

rationalised in number, links to login screens explained, and login screens themselves

require simple explanations of what the tool is and who it is for.

Personalisation

Internal system personalisation is recommended to be a later-phase development for the

internal audience site, once the requirement is more fully understood. This is a relatively

complex development requiring dynamic interfaces and content for different user

profiles. The first part of this work might be to give staff users and student users a tailored

set of content and tools to meet their differing needs.

Note that personalisation of the external audience website is not thought to be a priority

(although a cookie-based approach may improve the ability of online applicants to find

the link to track progress). More important is to ensure the site delivers on the key

persona goals and tasks, as this will give users the majority of what they need in terms of a

personal experience of content and functionality.


Improvements in this area are central to the success of the programme of change that is

planned at LSE. Much work is already underway to improve standards and manage

content more effectively. The implementation of the new content management system

will be a key enabler to better working practices.

There is a keen appetite with LSE content owners/publishers to have more support and

guidance from the central communications team. In fact central control of core content

like news, events, courses and people-finder is needed to avoid duplication.


Any real improvements here require further investment in communications staff (central

and devolved) as well as new ways of working. The headcount of web professionals will

have to increase.

Content quality and standards

The standard of writing across both sites should be improved to reflect the correct LSE

tone of voice for marketing to external audiences or communicating internally. Training

should be provided focused on writing for the web and knowing your audience. Writing

standards and style guides are currently available but are not being used. Quarterly

seminars for all core content owners in departments and research centres (50?) may be

useful develop knowledge and skills, roll out new features and understand how the central

team can better support devolved publishers.

Automated tools are useful for checking spelling and broken links, but quality content

comes from content professionals’ hard work, skill and judgement.

Not just writing quality is in need of attention but there is a need for guidance and

standards for how photography, video and audio should be presented. The soon-to-be-

introduced image library will help in this endeavour but clear standards and examples of

what good photography and video looks like is essential too. In particular, on the

homepage, only excellent imagery should be used to illustrate news and events.

Accessibility standards must also be maintained by individual content owners.

Design and templates

Controlling the design (visuals, layout, copy, links) of the homepage and landing pages

will be crucial to maintaining a strong overall impression and experience of the LSE

online. The Communications team will need firm ownership of these pages to keep

standards high, while accommodating the needs of departments and others.

The roll-out of a new set of templates for academic departments and content owners will

be crucial to managing the way content is presented and displayed. Devolved publishing

teams are likely to need a good deal of support as the new templates are implemented.

Helping teams understand the flexibilities and constraints will be important. Enforcing

the adherence to design and template standards will be a major part of the new site roll-

out and the responsibility of the Communications team.

Publishing processes and management

Day to day origination, review, approval and publishing processes should be clear and

visible to all. Ideally, the content management software will be set up to reflect the

optimum publishing workflow for LSE, rather than using standard out-of-the-box

workflows.

A key principle of content management must be to focus most time on reviewing

published content, not just publishing new material. Only in this way will content quality


be kept high. A second principle must be that quality is more important than quantity.

And there should be a process for removing and deleting content to contain the number of

pages of content on both LSE sites. The search results can only be improved by ensuring

good quality content is found. The use of keyword tagging would facilitate this and aid

user navigation.

Role of the central communications team

The central team’s remit as leaders and advisors is crucial to the successful reworking of

the internal and external sites. This may be something of a repositioning of the status and

service offer of ‘Web Services’ and other communications functions such as the AV unit.

As leaders, the central team needs to be proactive and out and about in departments

guiding and facilitating. Ultimately, the Communications team need to be able to own and

be accepted as owners of the entire web presence – content, structure, design, templates,

multimedia, technology. Guidance and support across all these areas is the service offer to

the LSE from the central team. However, part of the leadership role is the authority to set

strategy and to say ‘no’ to some requests.

The central team have a major task ahead to lead and embed change throughout the LSE

and take devolved teams with them. A working group that is comprised of managing

editors and others may be useful to engage with a broader group of internal stakeholders.

Aspirational academic departments like Government and Law should be involved as these

teams can show the way ahead and set an example for other departments.

Devolved publishing teams

Devolved publishers are a disparate and variously skilled group who need much more

support from Communications.

Publishing must be taken more seriously at content owner level, which means

enhancement of skills and more application of time to improve the quality of pages that

are published. Job descriptions may need to be remodelled and training on writing for the

web is certainly required for devolved publishers.

The current plan to reduce the number of content contributors is supported. A smaller

group of devolved content experts with specialist skills (<50) will be much more

manageable than the current 400 and this smaller specialist team can be supported more

efficiently by the Communications team. Training and guidance work can be driven

through the managing editor team. To be able to keep on top of quality and control the

site management, we’d suggest no more than 50 devolved content publishers have

permission to use the CMS (plus one back-up person for each publisher for continuity and

illness cover).

Finally, some devolved publishing teams may like to ‘buy’ support from the

Communications team rather than running their own sites. In this case central resourcing

would increase and devolved resource decrease, professionalising and improving content

quality as a result.


Delivery challenges and risks

Defining and embedding change

Perhaps the biggest challenge is refocusing the School on the renewed vision and purpose

of the external audience site. Part of this is a change of mindset to concentrate on

‘customers’ and look outward, moving away from the department-centric thinking that

prevails today. Getting ‘buy-in’ from academic departments for the new design directions

and a department template or suite of templates is a must.

Another part is getting the LSE once again excited about the opportunity – the visual

designs will play a large part in conveying a new style and reinforcing the corporate

attitude online.

Getting the LSE at large ready for the changes through continued engagement of the

internal stakeholders who have participated so far in this exercise is a major and ongoing

commitment.

Also, establishing clearer and more business-like roles and responsibilities for publishing

will take time to settle in. Changes to status and authority will need top-down

endorsement to have impact and be accepted, but success will come from a collaborative

effort on the ground driven by the central communications team. The benefits of such

collaboration will need to be tangible for participants to be willing to buy-in to a new way

of working.

Establishing criteria for success

How will you know that this has all been worthwhile and that you are getting business

value from you web sites? Defining realistic, measurable criteria for success, both

qualitative and quantitative should be part of the re-launch plan. Benchmarks need to be

set now.

Getting the basics right first

Blogs and podcasts are of no use if they can’t be found and if the core user experience

related to fulfilling priority tasks is poor. The initial focus should be on implementing a

new site structure, templates and design and regaining control of content quality and

quantity. There will be pressure to get on to the cool stuff sooner rather than later, so a

roadmap for change that highlights benefits and the rationale will assist the LSE in

staying on track.

It’s worth noting that none of the external audience interviewees mentioned a desire to

see web 2.0 technology, and few of your UK competitors are using new technology yet.

Getting the content right

This is a huge job. First and foremost the current content set needs reviewing, reworking

and improving according to a new set of standards. Thereafter, content quality needs to

be sustained as part of business-as-usual processes.


Onward development of designs and application to core

templates

We feel the development of the static homepage designs to full site designs for the

external and internal audience sites is a significant task. And while we can see that the

central communications team has specialist skills and personnel, it is a task that

Precedent would find challenging ourselves. Part of the challenge is to create a set of

design templates that really give the sites a new feel. Another challenge is defining

‘flexibility’ for academic departments so that an overarching design and structure can be

retained while giving departments their own space to do their thing. Finally, continued

user engagement throughout the development process is important to ensure that the

sites are really on target for all priority audiences.

Some competitors like Warwick and Pennsylvania have strong homepages, but are

uninspiring beyond. LSE must ensure the new site delivers a consistently engaging

experience throughout.


Future considerations Some of the ideas and issues that have emerged are recommended to be dealt with after

the main redesign and relaunch work is in progress. These are lesser priorities or major

corporate projects that require significant effort across the LSE.

— Systems’ integration and business process change: to unite databases, web and

other systems and applications to remove duplication and inefficiencies. Some

content management issues stem from poor processes.

There may be benefits in integrating the design and user experience of other web-

based systems such as LSEforYou, Moodle, the summer school site and the

alumni site.

— Content enhancements: while content tagging will improve the search

performance and allow new ways to arrange and organise content, it requires

content authors to assign keywords from predefined taxonomies. Developing

taxonomies, tagging content and developing search functionality to accommodate

these enhancements will take time.

In addition, there may be new and interesting ways of categorising LSE

programmes and research outputs thematically (climate change, poverty,

healthcare), which would offer both external and internal users different views of

LSE at work

— Language options: a shortlist of languages into which key high-level content

pages might be translated is required. There are mixed views about the value of

translating content, but it is clear this would be a significant commitment and

requires the same editorial care as any other content. The development of

language options could potentially be funded by a HEIF4 bid.


Phases of work and enablers

1. RELAUNCH ext/int audience sites

Design, structure and function, content rework inc.

lead departments, video

2. ENHANCEMENT

Social media, systems integration, personalisation,

internal tool interface design, content tagging

Corporate-wide engagement and collaboration

Establishment of publishing standards, processes and new teams

Continued external/internal user engagement and testing

Clarification and communication of LSE positioning and personality

Today 2010

Enablers


Annex 1: Review process engagements – who we have spoken to

Process stage/task Name

Core stakeholder

engagement:

workshop 1

Stephen Emmott – Head, Web Services

Catherine Bellamy – Corporate Web Editor, Web Services

Nick Byrne – Director, LSE Language Centre

Adrian Ellison – Assistant Director, IT Services

George Gaskell – Pro-Director, Resources & Planning

Chris Higgins – Director of Estates (Interim)

Liz Barnett (prox Lynne Roberts) – Director, Teaching &

Learning

Mike Gerguson (prox Keith Adams)

Fiona Kirk (prox Gemma Wicks) – Director, Development &

Alumni Relations

Maureen Wade – Head, Library Services

Simeon Underwood – Academic Registrar

Andrew Webb – Director, Business Continuity

Core stakeholder

engagement: face-

to-face interviews

Jenny Bone – Director, Planning & Corporate Policy Division

Andy Coulthard – Assistant Director, IT Services

Robin Hoggard – Director, ERD

Amber Miro – Assistant Director, IT Services (User Services)

Steve Ryan – Director, Centre for Learning Technology

Fiona Kirk – Director, Development & Alumni Relations

Wider stakeholder

engagement:

workshop 2a

(content workshop)

Elizabeth Aitken – Head, Special Teaching Programmes Unit

Charlotte Armah – Head, Alumni Relations

Catherine Baldwin – Head, Recruitment & Admissions

Catherine Bennett – Dept Manager, Media & Communications

Nicole Boyce – Dept Manager, Government

Linda Clarkson – Telecoms Ops Manager

Marysia Henty – Communications Manager Administration &

Planning, Library

Hrilina Lock – Undergraduate Admissions Manager

Phil Lomas – Administrator, Centre for Analysis Risk &

Regulation

Rachael Maguire – Records Manager & Data Protection Officer

Michael Nelson – Assistant Research Policy Manager, Research

& Projects Development Division

Alan Revel – Events Manager, Conferences & Events

Anthony Simpson – Supervisor, Post Room


Sally Welch – Human Resources Manager, Human Resources

Joy Whyte – Dept Manager, Law



Richard Meheux – Production Manager, Web Services

Wider stakeholder

engagement: face-

to-face interviews

Warwick Smith – Head, Press & Information

Claire Sanders – Head, Communications, ERD

Eiko Thielemann – Lecturer, Government & European

Institute

Jon Adams – Facts Research Officer, Economic History

Rodney Barker/Nicole Boyce – Head & Dept Manager,

Government


Elizabeth Aitken – Head, Special Teaching Programmes Unit

Joy Whyte/Lee Jackson – Dept Manager & Administrator, Law

Nigel Rogers/Anita Bardhan-Roy – Administrator & Manager,

Centre for Economic Performance


Julian Szego – Deputy Director of Operations, Alumni

Relations Development

Rachel Sutherden – ODAR Systems Manager, Alumni

Relations Development

Shauna Honey – Alumni Relations Officer, Alumni Relations


Gemma Wicks – Development Officer Stewardship &

Communications, Alumni Relations Development

Wider stakeholder

engagement:

questionnaire

response review


Mark Atkinson – Head of Facilities


Simon Beattie – Administrative Manager, Graduate

Admissions


Catherine Bennett – Dept Manager, Media & Communications


James Browne – Communications & Marketing Manager, Dept

of Management

Linda Clarkson – Telecoms Operations Manager

Chris Connelley – Head of Staff Development Unit

Pete Crowe – Purchasing Advisor, Finance Division


Nicole Gallivan – Communications Assistant, Press &

Information


Alison Hamilton – Divisional Administrator, Human

Resources

Champa Heidbrink – Research Centre Manager, LSE Health &

Social Care

Marysia Henty – Communications Manager Administration &

Planning, Library

John Heyworth – Manager, LSE Language Centre

Yanina Hinrichsen – Dept Manager, Anthropology

Therese Holmqvist – Senior Student Services Assistant Exams

& Ceremonies

Gillian Hope – Office Administrator, IT Services

Charlotte Knights – Dept Manager, Accounting

Raj Lakhani – Deputy Pay Manager HR

Matt Lingard – Learning Technologist, Centre for Learning

Technology

Maria Lluch – Project Coordinator, LSE Health & Social Care

Hrilina Lock – Undergraduate Admissions Manager

Rachael Maguire – Records Manager & Data Protection Officer

Mark Maloney – Head, Academic Partnerships

Richard Meheux – Production Manager, Web Services

Sooraya Mohabeer – Knowledge Transfer Events Executive,

Conference & Events

Catherine Osley – Deputy Manager, Financial Support

Mike Page – Head, ARD Systems & Business Processes

Virginia Pavey – Manager, Centre for Climate Change

Sue Plater – Financial Support Manager, Financial Support

Kate Punt – Web Editorial Assistant, Web Services

Dan Reeves – Pay & Information Coordinator, Human

Resources


Louise Schuller – Analyst Web Designer, Web Services

Jo Stone – Administration & Communications Officer,

Anthropology

Toni Sym – Communications Officer, Press & Information

Paul Trivett – Accommodation Officer, Residential & Catering

Services

Helen Vieth – External Affairs & Project Development

Manager, LSE Health & Social Care

Sally Welch – Human Resources Manager, Human Resources

Tom Williams – Web Producer, Web Services

Natalie Woods – Executive Assistant, Corporate Relations Unit

Wider stakeholder Stephen Emmott – Head, Web Services


engagement:

workshop 2b (wider

consultation)

Kate Punt – Web Editorial Assistant, Web Services


Jennifer Goldstein – Research & Operations Executive, ERD


Simon Hill – Manager, Reprographics Services

Marc Atkins – Catering

Helen Vieth – External Affairs & Project Development

Manager, LSE Health & Social Care

Maria Lluch – Project Coordinator, LSE Health & Social Care


Sally Watson – Programme Administrator, Employment

Relations & Organisational Behaviour

Eleni Michael – Deputy Human Resources Manager, Human

Resources

Jan Ferguson – Telecoms Administrator, IT Services

Mark Maloney – Head, Academic Partnerships

James Browne – Communications & Marketing Manager, Dept

of Management

Jane Secker – Learning Technology Librarian, Centre for

Learning Technology

Mike Page – Head, ARD Systems & Business Processes

Sue Plater – Financial Support Manager, Financial Support

Catherine Osley – Deputy Manager, Financial Support

Nick White – Library Archives

Sarah Atkinson – Asia Forum & Events Executive, Conference

& Events

Louise Gaskell – Events Administrator, Conferences & Events

Sooraya Mohabeer – Knowledge Transfer Events Executive,

Conferences & Events

Shauna Honey – Alumni Relations Officer, Alumni Relations

Elaine Gascoyne – Dept Manager, Geography

User engagement:

internal focus

group (academic

staff, academic

support staff,

undergraduate

students)

John Madeley – Lecturer, Dept Tutor & Deputy Head of Dept,

Government



Lifan Chen – Undergraduate

Jan Sramek – Undergraduate

Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang – Undergraduate and Education &

Welfare Officer, LSE Students’ Union

User engagement:

external focus

Lulu – Archbishop Tenison’s Sixth Form, Potential

Undergraduate


group

(undergraduates)

Ali – Holland Park Sixth Form, Potential Undergraduate

User engagement:

phone interviews

(graduates/

postgraduates)

Alessia Pirolo

Alix De Chillaz Hop

Thomas Markham

Kate Ryan

Jennifer Goldstein – Research & Operations Executive, ERD

User engagement:

phone interview

(alumni)

Rishi Madlani, Renewable Energy team, Royal Bank of

Scotland

Low-fi testing:

internal audience

group



Charlie Beckett – Director, POLIS (LSE's media think tank)

Toni Sym – Communications Officer, Press & Information

Sean Deel – Undergraduate

Low-fi testing:

external audience

group

Dia Flores

Jennifer Quigley-Jones

King Sosu-Mobee

Kelly-Anne Thomas

Franco Carrieri


Annex 2: personas (typical user profiles)

Mei Yee, potential postgraduate student

Personal attributes

Job | Undergraduate student

Age | 22

Location | Beijing, speaks Chinese and English

How the LSE website can help

• I’ve heard LSE has a fantastic reputation and that the graduates are highly sought after in industry. London

Goals

• To find out if LSE does my chosen course and understand both the entry requirements and acceptance statistics for it, as well as it’s ranking compared to other universities.

• To work out what the financial and time commitments would be – I’ll probably have to do a part time job while studying

Potential student: Mei Yee

“I want to find out if they do my chosen course, what the course will cover and how much it will cost me to study there.”

graduates are highly sought after in industry. London IS at the heart of the financial world and this makes it all the more appealing.

• I know it’s really competitive to get in to the top British universities like LSE and Oxford, and that the fees are very high but that it’s worth it to get the top jobs afterwards.

• I want to find out if LSE does my course and whether I’m likely to get in, and if I am, how much it will cost me for both fees and also living in London.

• Detailed information about my course and the tutors is really important, as is information about the opportunities I’m likely to have after finishing – at the end of the day it’s a considerable investment I’m making and I want to know it’s worthwhile.

studying

• I’d like to see photos of the LSE campus and where I’ll be living in halls. And I’d like to email someone who’s already there to see what they think of the place and my course.

• I want to know all about my tutors, the department and what are the majority of alumni doing now. Perhaps some alumni are in Beijing and I could speak to them.

• I don’t understand the British academic system, so it would be good to have the main dates and structure highlighted without having to wade through pages of text

Frequency of use of and reliance on LSE website

• I’ve been to the site about half a dozen times before now, at the point I’m now seriously thinking of applying

• I’m going to be applying online, so I’ll use it every week or two during the application process

Marco, TV journalist

Personal attributes

Job | Journalist (TV and press)

Age | 40

Location | Italy, London (Italian, but have lived in the UK for 5 years and is bilingual)


• I need to be able to find relevant information

Goals

• Find an expert – by research interest/expertise

• Contact an expert – direct line phone number and email address, availability (office hours, term time)

• Find biographical details about an expert –CV/biography, media experience, languages spoken, positions held, teaching responsibilities, publications, methodologies used

Media: Marco

“I need to be able to find the ‘right’ expert in a hurry for interviews, and to access ground-breaking research to inform articles I’m writing”

• I need to be able to find relevant information immediately when a current issue arises to inform my reporting; often I need to interview a relevant expert on TV at short notice so I need to be able to find someone who knows their topic well, and can do a good TV interview!

• But also I am looking longer term to find interesting current affairs topics to write informed articles for the Italian Sunday press and serious current affairs magazines – the experts at LSE always have insightful opinions that often spark ideas for pieces when I hear them.

methodologies used

• Access publications by topic

• General browsing of current affairs opinions – I sometimes eat my lunch whilst looking through my favourite blogs, or flick through them on my iPhone if stuck on the DLR on my way to work


• I use the Research & Expertise portal every one to two weeks to get information and/or an expert for a story I’m doing

• I rely on the site to be up-to-date and complete

• As long as they don’t spam me with things I’m not interested in, I might subscribe to an email service or an RSS feed on a topic I’m particularly interested in

Bob, business development director

Personal attributes

Job | Business development director of a large IT company in the UK

Age | 54

Location | UK (British)


• If I’m looking for consultancy or training I want to be

Goals

• To find consultancy or training information – what consultancy and training services does LSE offer, who are LSE’s clients, and how to get in contact: I haven’t got time to ‘wade’ through ‘marketing-speak’ – I just want to understand quickly what is on offer and how to make contact with the right person.

• Topic based search – find information on specific topics

Business: Bob

“I’m really busy and if I’m looking for consultancy or training I need to understand the service offer really quickly and see how to get in touch”

• If I’m looking for consultancy or training I want to be able to find out quickly and easily which services are offered, which clients LSE has, and who to contact if I want to get in touch.

• My team and I are also always ‘horizon scanning’ to see if there are cultural or economic issues that we need to factor into our strategic thinking, so we often look at a range of sources to see what’s happening.

• Topic based search – find information on specific topics or find an expert in that topic – it’s unlikely that I’ll know who the expert is in advance, so I need an effective topic search so that when I search on something, for example, ‘credit crunch’ I get meaningful results. I’m used to other sites showing me related articles when I find something of use, making it easy to follow leads to more information.


• I use the Research & Expertise portal when I’m looking for consultancy or information to inform my business planning cycle – this might be a two or three times a year

• I expect the site to be up-to-date and complete

• I’ll direct my team members to the LSE site, as well as others, when they say they need training support –I need to make a quick choice based on quality and value

Sandeep, LSE academic

Personal attributes

Job | Academic at LSE, teaching undergraduate students and also supervise research teams undertaking original research

Age | 42

Location | UK (Indian, living in UK since a child)


Goals

• Quick access to email when I’m not in the office

• Management of my teaching duties using Moodle and LSEforYou

• Quick and simple access to my students’ details

• Contact details of LSE colleagues – telephone and email, and a photo, to help with networking

• Current research interests of LSE academics – both the

LSE academic: Sandeep

“I need to be able to get to everything – teaching resources, staff directories, corporate policies, email – quickly and easily”


• So much of what I do is done online now – it would be great if everything I need was in one place with one login.

• I probably make most use of the Library website and find that their new ‘tag cloud’ thing makes browsing subjects easier than it used to be.

• I get bombarded with emails, but now my students can see my online timetable and book time with me it’s a bit more manageable.

• Moodle is great, but you need to keep on top of it – I’m uploading things every other day.

• I love the ‘buzz’ of LSE and try to keep up with all the latest news and events.

• I get invitations to present my papers at lots of great places and the site helps be get my profile out there.

• Current research interests of LSE academics – both the field and their methodological approaches so I can find people with relevant interests for research collaborations, and as co-supervisors and examiners for PhD students

• Academic papers and publications – to get lists of academic papers by topic or author, to find a specific paper, to check references and citations.

• Latest LSE news

• “Boring” HR things when I need them (not that often) –policies and procedures etc. Opening hours and contact details for the nursery when I need to use it for my son


• It’s an integral part of my working life at LSE – I use it every day, including weekends from home

• I rely on the site to be up-to-date and complete

Margaret, co-ordinator in the finance division

Personal attributes

Job | Co-ordinator in the finance division

Age | 29

Location | UK (Italian, living in UK for 15 years)


• My job involves liaising with lots of people in different departments. Since I’m fairly new to the School and our

Goals

• Streamlining my job and making other staff members’ lives easier by transferring processes online

• Looking up contact details (email and phone) of other members of staff

• Reading LSE staff policies and procedures, including HR-related things concerning my own employment

• Staying up to date with LSE news and events

LSE academic support staff: Margaret

“My goal is to make sure everyone has an access to the information they need and to streamline the division’s processes”

departments. Since I’m fairly new to the School and our office is slightly off campus, I need to keep looking people up to find out what they do and where their office is.

• Part of my role is to make sure everyone has got access to the information they need with regards to School financial things like fees tables and procurement processes, as well as personal benefits like pensions and health care.

• I’ve worked with our departmental web editor and Communications to make all this available on the website, streamlining internal processes and reducing the requests we receive – our head count has been reduced so we need to work smarter.

• I only moved to London last year for the job, so am going along to a lot of the School social events to try and meet new friends and build a social life here.

• Staying up to date with LSE news and events


• I use the People Finder application daily, and the campus maps whenever I have a meeting in another department

• The more I can make information and other request processes available online, the easier my job will become – I’ve been fire-fighting email requests since I started, but it’s getting easier now

Personal attributes

Job | Undergraduate student in Management

Age | 21

Location | UK (American)


• I never seem to be off the Internet – keeping in touch with friends on Facebook and downloading movies and

Goals

• Daily use of systems for course materials

• Finding course reading materials on Moodle and in the Library

• Receiving my assignment results

• Booking time with my tutors and checking my study diary

• Finding a place to study with the right facilities

LSE student: Natalie

“My goal is to use all the online resources at my disposal to ensure I succeed academically and enjoy my student life here”

Natalie, undergraduate student at LSE

with friends on Facebook and downloading movies and music, although I’m getting less chance to do this kind of stuff in my final year.

• The LSE site isn’t bad, but compared to all the other sites I use it’s a bit lacking – I kind of expect to find things quickly and for them to be easy to use, everything else is these days.

• It would be great if everything to do with LSE was all in one place with one login – at the moment I get my results on LSEforYou, whilst my course materials are spread over department sites, tutors’ personal pages, Moodle, and received in email! It’s hard to keep track of it all.

• The site has a brilliant Student Careers Centre that has helped me secure an internship right after my finals.

• Finding a place to study with the right facilities (printers and software etc)

• Logging on to my email when I’m working from home

• Keeping up to date with events – both social things and lectures (public and departmental)

• Getting help when I need it – financial and wellbeing advice in particular


• I’m on the LSE site and systems every day

• It’s an integral part of my study at LSE easier now

Personal attributes

Job | Works in an investment bank in The City

Age | 29

Location | UK (British)


• The Internet is a big part of my life – both at work and also at home for general life planning and keeping in

Goals

• Finding out about forthcoming public events

• Keeping up to date with LSE news – things like staff changes and seeing photos of new buildings

• It’s nice to feel a little bit still involved, so I gladly help with the odd survey and will consider making a donation to a project I feel is deserving

• Getting back in touch with people I met at LSE –

Alumni: James

“I want to stay updated about forthcoming public events and find out about changes at the School”

James, LSE alumnus

also at home for general life planning and keeping in touch with friends on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• I’m proud of where I went to University and it helps open a few doors for me. I like to keep up date with what’s going on back at LSE, in particular staff moves and changes like new buildings – it’s nice to reminisce.

• One of the things I loved most about LSE was the big public events. Since I just work in The City, I still like to attend these whenever I can

• I think I’m on a couple of LSE email lists, but at old email addresses I don’t check that often. I can’t access personal email at work, so miss out on last minute event alerts.

• It would be great to be able to get back in touch with other students from my time at LSE, but last time I looked at Houghton Street Online it didn’t seem to have enough alumni signed-up.

• Getting back in touch with people I met at LSE –people’s contact details often change, especially if their parents move

• A quick way to add or change subscriptions to email alerts and amend my email addresses (I’ll need a work and home address)

• Helping LSE students find jobs through my personal network – you always know they’ll be good quality applicants


• I visit the site about once a month, mostly for news and events information


Annex 3: site maps and page principles

Courses and Study

Why LSE?

Course search results

Undergraduate

(Post)Graduate

Executive Education

Summer Schools

Life at LSE

Student Profiles

Student Support & Services

Accommodation

Career Centre

Fees & Student Finances

International Students

Alumni

Notable Alumni

Alumni Associations

Reunions & Events

Benefits & Services

Professional Support

Study Opportunities

Research & Expertise

Find an Expert (search by subject )

Experts Directory

Promoted Research Projects

LSE Research Institutes

LSE Research Online

Business & Consultancy

Our Services

Consulting

Executive Education

Find an Expert

Case Studies

Client List

News & Media

News & Press Releases

Current Opinion Pieces

LSE in the Media

Press Contact

Find an Expert

Image Library

Public Events

Events calendar

Previous Events (podcasts)

Subscribe to Email Updates

Supporting LSE

Achievements

Supporters

Campaigns

Make a Gift

Get Involved with LSE

Annual Fund

About Us

Introduction to the School

Key Facts

Meet the Director

LSE Virtual Tour

LSE History

Vision & Strategy

External homepage LSE Staff & Students

Prospective Students Alumni / Donors Business / Government MediaLSE Staff & Students Multi / GeneralOther AcademicsLEGEND (audiences):

External website

Study Abroad (General Course)

Language Centre

External Study

How to Apply

Campus & Facilities

Virtual Tour

Visit LSE

Social Life

London at Your Feet

Student’s Union

Success Stories

Get Back in Touch!

FAQs

Join Now!

Houghton Street Online

Subscribe to Email Newsletter

Achievements / Rankings

Annual Reports etc

Search

Keyword

People

Documents

Contact & Maps

General Contact

Telephone Directory

Freedom of Information

Maps & Directions

Jobs

Current Vacancies

How to Apply

Working For LSE

Staff Profiles

Where we Advertise

Multimedia

Videos

Podcasts

Image Galleries

About this Site Website Feedback Terms of Use Copyright & IPPrivacy & Data

ProtectionAccessibility

Academic DeptsResearch Centres

FOOTER

WEBSITE SWITCH UTILITIES

Library

CourseCourse

Courses & Study

Why LSE?

Course Search Results

Undergraduate

(Post)Graduate

Courses & Study:

Landing page content:

– Boilerplate / Message from Director

– Keyword search box with AJAX ‘live’ suggestions

– Mandatory type (eg. undergrad)

– Optional subject (eg. finance)

External - First and Second Tiers

A-Z list as “search all”

Course

External homepage

Specific sub-

audience course

search on each.

Executive Education

Summer Schools

Study Abroad (The General Course)

Language Centre

External Study

How to Apply

– Link to A-Z course list

– Main sub-audience groups (undergrad, postgrad, summer schools, etc)

– Cross-link to “Life at LSE”

– Cross-link to “Virtual Tour of LSE”

Throughout section:

– Promote “Visit LSE” (open days) and “LSE visits you” (within International Students)

– Promote “Fees and Financial Support”

Prospectus:

download PDF

and request on

each

Details of How

to Apply

Course:

Page content:

– Summary– Overview– Requirements (clear, concise; not in prose)– Acceptance Stats (tabularise, historic x3 yrs)– Ranking of Course– Fees + Scholarships

External - Primary Destination page

External homepage

Courses & Study


CourseCourse

– How to Apply (call-to-action)

– Course topics / modules (link to detail incl. reading lists)

– Staff (link to personal pages)

– Departments(s) (link to)

– Critical dates + application process

– Course timetable

– Time commitment (Postgrad courses)

– Career prospects

– Alumni (notable / general terms)

– Testimonials + current student contact (send message)

– Downloadable course ‘crib sheet’ (for offline comparison)

– Alternative courses (suggest similar / related courses)

Course


Life at LSE

Student Profiles

Student Support & Services

Accommodation

Career Centre

Fees & Student Finances

Life at LSE:

Section:

Information related to being a student at LSE.

Promote the importance of the Student Experience – not just study, but social and extra-curricular



Campus & Facilities

Virtual Tour

Visit LSE

Social Life

London at Your Feet

Student’s Union


– Overview of Student Body Profile (show truly international aspect, breakdowns by age, origin, background etc.)

– Puff to Virtual Tour

– Puff to Accommodation

– Puff to Life in London

– Puff to info for International Students

Alumni

Notable Alumni

Alumni Associations

Reunions & Events

Benefits & Services


Alumni:

Section:

External facing pages (ie. not within Houghton Street Online) need to promote the Alumni Association's activities and encourage membership

There is an interest amongst potential students (especially post grad) to learn more about



Study Opportunities

Success Stories

Get Back in Touch!

FAQs

Join Now!

Houghton Street Online

(especially post grad) to learn more about notable alumni as well as more ‘normal’ success stories – highlight and promote on individual course details pages

Reinforce/articulate the School’s reputation through previous alumni

Cross promote “Support LSE”


– Gateway page to Houghton Street Online login

– Promote membership and reasons for

– Historic stories (notable alumni)

– Current stories (successes)

Research & Expertise

Find an Expert(search by subject )

Experts Directory

Research & Expertise:

Section:

Promote more browsing opportunities (currently centred around search) – highlight important or interesting current projects and provide ability to access information by subject browsing

Important to cross-link with other areas of the site –closer integration with LSE Research Online


Promoted Research Projects

LSE Research Institutes

LSE Research Online

closer integration with LSE Research Online

Experts Directory is a sub-set of “People” Directory – work from same database to ensure consistency of information / deletion on leaving


– Reduce immediate ‘wall of text’ – break information in to highlighted areas

– Separate related links (right) from section navigation (left). Bring search to main focus (middle of page)

– Promote ‘newsworthy’ projects

Business & Consultancy

Our Services

Consulting

Executive Education

Business & Consultancy:

Section:

New section to support Business / Policy Maker audiences

Close integration with Research & Expertise / Experts Directory


Executive Education

Find an Expert

Case Studies

Client List


– Lay out offer concisely with links to detail by subject / type of consultancy

– Highlight latest or pertinent to greatest appeal case studies

– Cross link to / promote Business’ staff development (Executive Education)

News & Media

News & Press Releases

Current Opinion Pieces

LSE in the Media

News & Media:

Section:

Importance of Media to maintain and raise profile of LSE – self-sustaining circle

Media “Centre” to facilitate journalists’ research to help fulfil awareness objectives

Introduction of commentary on current events to


Press Contact

Find an Expert

Image Library

Subscribe to Email Newsletter

Introduction of commentary on current events to strengthen position of LSE as thought leaders whilst hopefully ‘sparking interest’ of journalists

Cross-links to Experts Directory / Profiles to raise consultancy service profile

Categorisation and/or keyword tagging of information will enable easier browsing and cross-referencing

Frequency and quality of writing of prime importance

Possible introduction of Image Library for credited use

Recommendation: Centralised news source with categorisation external / internal / department. News sections display relevant stories with ability for Editor to promote departmental news of worth.

Public Events

Events calendar

Public Events:

Section:

Wide audience interest

High profile events help form reputation through association with speaker

Previous events provide a valuable legacy –documentable by multimedia content


Events calendar

Previous Events (podcasts)

Subscribe to Email Updates

documentable by multimedia content (podcast/vodcast). Linkbait material to increase SERP and profile generally

Categorisation and browsing by subject area would aid usability and assist cross-referencing of related content, whether just other events or additional types of information

RSS feeds and email alerts / subscription service of categorised content

Better typography and layout to assist user quickly interpret information

Supporting LSE

Achievements

Supporters

Campaigns

Supporting LSE:

Section:

Low volume, high importance audience

Mainly Alumni, but not exclusive

Potential to descend to second level tier (within Alumni or About Us) to simplify top level nav if need. Promote within page content using puffs


Campaigns

Make a Gift

Get Involved with LSE

Annual Fund

need. Promote within page content using puffs if this happens


– Promote achievements

– Highlight benefactors

About Us

Introduction to the School

Key Facts

Meet the Director

LSE Virtual Tour

About Us:

Section:

Large requirement from Prospective Students (especially Undergrad) to see/experience the School and its facilities. Recommend Virtual Tour is massively extended, makes use of larger pictures and potentially video, is better user-controlled, and made available as non-Flash.


LSE Virtual Tour

LSE History

Vision & Strategy

Achievements / Rankings

Annual Reports etc

controlled, and made available as non-Flash. Needs massive promotion in Courses & Study and Life at LSE sections

Currently missing “key facts” overview – quick access statistics and ‘crib sheets’

Reinforce/articulate the School’s reputation


– Welcome video by The Director

– Succinct Vision & Strategy linking to detail

– Highlights of Ranking and Achievements linking to detail

– Visual detail of the campus

Academic Departments

Accounting

Anthropology

DESTIN

Economic History

European Institute

Language Centre

Law

Management

Mathematics

Media and Communications

Academic Departments:

Description:

– Rollover columned ‘dropdown’ style navigation (like John Lewis) outwith the main navigation

– Departments list on External site only includes Academic Departments

– Definitive list of departments agreed by DMT on


Finance

Geography and Environment

Government

International History

International Relations

Communications

Methodology Institute

Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Mind

Social Policy

Sociology

Statistic

– Definitive list of departments agreed by DMT on 26/01/2009

Research Centres

Asia Research Centre

BIOS

CARR

CASE

Centre for the Study of Human Rights

Financial Markets Research Group

Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change…

Ideas: Diplomacy and Strategy @ LSE

Research Centres:

Description:

– Rollover columned ‘dropdown’ style navigation (like John Lewis) outwith the main navigation

– Definitive list of research centres agreed by DMT on 26/01/2009


CATS

Centre for Civil Society

Centre for Economic Performance

CPNSS

Centre for the Study of Global Governance

LSE Health & Social Care

LSE Centre for Cities

Spatial Economics Research Centre

STICERD

Workspace (home promos)

“System” messages

Moodle

Email (web access)

Library System

People Finder (staff + students)

Room Booking

LSE Services

Service Guide

IT Service & Support

Property & Maintenance

Language Centre

Teaching & Learning Centre

Race Equality

Staff

Training & Courses

Learning & Management

Support

Teaching & Learning Support

Staff Development

Staff Consultative Council

Disability & Wellbeing

Students

Pre Arrivals

New Arrivals


Mentoring & Tutoring

Financial Support

Accommodation

Research & Development

RAE

Research Funding News

Collaboration Opportunities

Funding Opportunities

Research Students

Research Centres

News

News Archive


LSE in the Media

News & Views

Diary & Events

Study Diary

Events Calendar (Public & Internal Lectures + Social)

Contact Events Team

Alert Service (reminders + new)

Careers & Vacancies

Student Career Centre (login)

Current Internal Vacancies

Recruitment Advice

External LSE Vacancies

Directories & Maps

Phone & Email Direct. (Staff Finder)

Experts Directory


Support & Admin Departments

Research Centres

Internal Committees & Working Groups

LSE Social

Social Events Calendar

Arts & Music

Catering

Chatterlog

External homepage Internal homepage

LSE Students LSE StaffLEGEND (audiences):

Internal websiteBoth LSE Staff &

Students

Form / Document Finder

LSEforYou

Google web search

Nursery

First Aid & Medical

Training

Communications

Health & Safety

Staff Policies & Processes

Staff Benefits & Rewards

Payroll & Salaries

Health & Fitness

Holidays & Absence

HR Dept (link)

Counselling


Health & Safety

Regulations & Policies

Students Union

PhD Student Portal

Student Careers

Problem Solver

Student Directory (SITS + Student

Finder)

Business Directories & Other Contacts

LSE Maps & Facilities

Emergency Contacts

Search

Keyword

People

Documents

My Favourites

About this Site Intranet Feedback Terms of Use Copyright & IPPrivacy & Data

ProtectionAccessibility

Academic Depts

Research Centres

FOOTER

WEBSITE SWITCH

UTILITIES

Library Support / Admin Depts

Internal homepage

“System” messages

Moodle

Email (web access)

Library System

Homepage:

Section:

Refer to homepage design

Page acts as ‘springboard’ to frequently used tools

“Workspace” area promotes these tools, shown here

Objective: make this page as useful as possible so it

Internal – Homepage features/content

People Finder (staff + students)

Room Booking

Form / Document Finder

LSEforYou

Google web search

Objective: make this page as useful as possible so it becomes the de facto user start page, therefore making it effective as internal broadcast mechanism

Page content:

– Highlight top news stories – both internal an external

– Highlight top events – internal and external

– Build sense of community

– Tabbed staff / student content (cookie remembered)?

– Personalisation in future phases

LSE Services

Service Guide

IT Service & Support

Property & Maintenance

Language Centre

Teaching & Learning

LSE Services:

Section:

Common (staff and student) services

Internal - First and Second Tiers

Teaching & Learning Centre

Race Equality

Nursery

First Aid & Medical

Training

Web Services

Staff

Training & Courses

Learning & Management Support

Teaching & Learning Support

Staff Development

Staff Consultative Council


Staff:

Section:

Services / links particular to staff. These highlighted in Staff tab area of homepage to make access quicker

Many of these are most popular HR related items. Recommendation would be to incorporate these in to ‘main’ site to stop ‘silo’ problem which is a


Health & Safety

Staff Policies & Processes

Staff Benefits & Rewards

Payroll & Salaries

Health & Fitness

Holidays & Absence

HR Dept (link)

in to ‘main’ site to stop ‘silo’ problem which is a result of website echoing School structure, but equally it could be argued that HR is logical grouping and provides focus of content. If taking latter approach, keep links as options, but deep link to HR web pages

Students

Pre Arrivals

New Arrivals


Mentoring & Tutoring

Financial Support

Accommodation

Counselling

Students:

Section:

Services / links particular to students. These highlighted in Student tab area of homepage to make access quicker

Additional section for Pre Arrivals (offer holders / accepted places) – feedback is these ‘half-way house’ users need information, especially


Counselling


Health & Safety

Regulations & Policies

Students Union

PhD Student Portal

Student Careers

Problem Solver

house’ users need information, especially international students (basics like bank accounts, links to non-School accommodation resources, etc)


– Key dates, including Term dates

– Pro-active Problem Solver ‘application’ – logical method flow, not just long page of links

– Highlight key social events to build sense of community and improve student experience

News

News Archive


News:

Section:

Self-explanatory

Should include both internal and external stories so there’s one location of all information

Recommendation: Centralised news source with categorisation external / internal / department.



LSE in the Media

News & Views

categorisation external / internal / department. News sections display relevant stories with ability for Editor to promote departmental news of worth

Collation of externally published news relating to / involving LSE will build internal awareness and foster pride and wider involvement

Diary & Events

Study Diary

Events Calendar (Public &

Diary & Events:

Section:

User requests for more centralised calendar, potentially including personalised content (this only possible after personalisation in future phase) and/or the ability to add events to own personal digital calendar applications (.ics files)

Recommendation: Centralised calendar with


Events Calendar (Public & Internal Lectures + Social)

Contact Events Team

Alert Service (reminders + new)

Recommendation: Centralised calendar with categorisation external / internal / department / personal (including availability of staff for students [requested]). Calendar pages display relevant level events; Events co-ordinator has ability to promote worthy departmental events

User requests for alert services

Careers & Vacancies

Student Career Centre (login)


Careers & Vacancies:

Section:

Self-explanatory

Particular interest amongst Postgrad Potential Students for post-course employment and internship opportunities. Opportunity to demonstrate this here



Recruitment Advice

External LSE Vacancies

Directories & Maps

Phone & Email Direct. (Staff Finder)

Experts Directory


Support & Admin Departments

Research Centres

Directories & Maps:

Section:

Collation of directories of departments/centres and people

Proposed IA makes recommendation of rollover ‘dropdown’ style navigation for direct access to departmental and centres sites, shown here for logical taxonomy and A-Z listing


Research Centres

Internal Committees & Working Groups

Student Directory (SITS + Student Finder)

Business Directories & Other Contacts

LSE Maps & Facilities

Emergency Contacts

logical taxonomy and A-Z listing

“People Directory” is the ‘killer app’. Recommendation: Centralised database maintained by HR for joiners/leavers, populated by controller of telephone and email directories, with sub-sets for Experts and departments for reuse within departmental websites

LSE Social

Social Events Calendar

Arts & Music

LSE Social:

Section:

Make internal website more than just a work tool

Build sense of community

Promote internal extra-curricular activities


Arts & Music

Catering

Chatterlog


Annex 4: homepage design concepts