by Sarah Norek
Back in September (2024), the websites for the Academic Success Center (ASC) and the Learning Corner (the ASC’s online academic support resource) migrated from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10.
For context: the ASC site shares ASC programs and services and how they can support students in their academic experience, progress and success at OSU. We also have information for partners, and broader academic support information for learning at OSU. Connected to the ASC site is the Learning Corner, the ASC’s online resource available whenever users have internet access. The Learning Corner is a collection of quick-to-read articles and interactive tools grounded in the science of learning and developed to help students learn how to learn. It’s a point of pride for the ASC that folks from across the country and around the world access the Learning Corner to support their learning or their students’ learning.
Leading up to the migration, we saw great opportunity in redesigning pages (and layout, structure, etc.) to improve the student-user experience. Below, you’ll find 5 considerations we made during the Learning Corner redesign specifically, and how we implemented them. We know this shift from D7 to D10 is happening across the university, and we hope that, in sharing about our process, we might offer ideas that resonate for or support others in a similar place.
- Students consume information differently than before. This will almost always be the case. Our access to information, the channels through which we learn information, will continue to evolve. In our current context, we know folks use social media feeds for quick bursts of content, so we moved away from longer, scrollable articles to shorter content that could be quickly consumed. It’s not an Instagram reel (but we do have those to share Learning Corner content and if you don’t already you should follow us!), but it’s a bloggier style, we’re incorporating more images, and we’re focusing on sharing tangible tips that can be considered quickly.
- Universal Design improves everyone’s experience. Sure, some folks will lean into a text-heavy webpage and be able to draw information from it, but it might not be a pleasant experience and, for a lot of users, it’s taxing. We thought intentionally about how many characters we wanted in each line (ideally, 50-60), how many words we wanted on each page (between 300 and 700 is our goal), and how we could use white space, images, and bolded font to amplify messaging and create a better, more effective and efficient reading experience. We want users to arrive to pages and not feel overwhelmed by the content but like it’s a friendly, inviting space to learn.
- Care matters. This wasn’t new information for us – we work hard to craft messaging and share content that’s student-centered and strengths based, and to do it in a tone that conveys care and relatability while also being reliable and informative. But the intersection of relatability and reliability can be challenging at times, when thinking about tone – we want to keep the research present and also be sure we deliver it in digestible ways. In our content, we’re writing to the student, we’re inviting the student to reflect, we’re acknowledging everyone’s going to approach things individually and what works for one person might not work for someone else. We’re conveying care through choices we offer as much as through tone we use.
- There’s no one way to engage with and consume information. Some users will be happy to read through a Quick Read (or two or three) and get their information in that form. Others might prefer to download information (a Handout), saving it to their computer or printing it out. Others might choose to print out a Tool to write on, while still others might decide to use the Tool as a fillable PDF. Knowing information consumption isn’t a monolith, we drafted content and content-types (Quick Reads, Handouts, Tools) to offer options and meet users where they’re at in terms of preferences and capacity.
- Guiding values and documents can inform and help us check our choices. The Office of Academic Support adopted Branding & Marketing Guidelines during the year that helped us ground our Learning Corner text and design choices. Having these, we could ask, Were we writing in the clearest way possible? Were we adhering to information hierarchy, with the most important information coming first? Did at least half of our images include people? Were we creating an intuitive tool? These questions reflect some of our values, and while each office’s values may differ, the exercise of checking against them can help to create a cohesive user experience.
We know these aren’t all the considerations to make, or what every office will consider for a shift to Drupal 10, but maybe there’s something here to support you in your Drupal 10 adventure, if you’re still on it. Drupal 10 can be challenging (so challenging!), and iteration takes time and capacity. Wherever you’re at and whatever you’re choosing, we’re cheering for you and, if you’ve got questions or want to talk about your process, or if you visit the Learning Corner and wonder how something you encounter relates back to these considerations or others, please be in touch!
