Enterprise Risk Management Initiative
A website redesign aimed to raise the digital profile of North Carolina State University’s Enterprise Risk Management Initiative as a knowledge leader in a budding industry.
ChallengeERM sought a website redesign that elevated its wealth of digital resources and industry insights; aligned its look and feel with the University’s brand while maintaining its position as a separate and distinct offshoot of its parent department, and increased its mobile accessibility to better reach target audiences. Throughout the lifecycle of the project, we also needed to either maintain or improve the site’s high SEO ranking.
DeliveredA responsive website redesign elevating digital thought leadership and educational programming in the emergent field of Enterprise Risk Management. We maintained the SEO rankings, incorporated more NC State brand colors through the use of accent colors and full color photography, and restructured the site overall in order to boost the digital resource library.
About the Enterprise Risk Management @ NC StateThe Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Initiative shapes the landscape of its budding industry through programs and workshops, research and education, insights and expertise. Its thought leadership guides both students and business leaders on how to apply ERM in corporate strategy and governance. This ecosystem of resources — including roundtables, articles, videos, academic curricula, research, public response and consultation — is key in charting new territory in an emergent discipline.
Creative StrategyCharting New Territory
Having outgrown its former website, we repositioned the ERM Initiative as a primary thought leader in a new field of study and practice through: Structure, Access and Visual Design.
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Structure*
Site Architecture, User Flow, Content Hierarchy — Restructure the Information Architecture to surface the wealth of content within the digital library and educational programs. Before diving into design and development, we took an inventory of all content, site performance and structure. Our findings revealed that, while content was ranking well, there was opportunity to: 1) elevate the ERM content library in the navigation and on the homepage, 2) improve the experience and searchability of the ERM content library, 3) drive visitors toward Events, which serves as one of the Initiative’s primary source of income, through an improved user flow.
* I managed the overall structure, which was informed by recommendations and insights from Foxxwork Creative’s digital marketing partner.
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Access*
Mobile Responsiveness, SEO Optimization — Customize a mobile responsive framework that grants a more global audience access to key content. Both the larger University and the ERM Initiative have global reach; however, given its much more seasoned web presence, the University is more recognizable to both site visitors and search engines. While the ERM Initiative already had a well-established SEO strategy and high search engine rankings, its former website was not responsive. Our challenge was to maintain or improve its SEO rankings while implementing responsive design and development. As frontend web developer, I built the frontend on a mobile responsive framework that was customized for our Client’s needs.
* SEO strategy was managed by a Foxxwork Creative digital marketing partner. A Foxxwork Creative independent contractor managed the backend strategy and implementation. I managed frontend web development.
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Visual Design
Branding, Art Direction — Strike a balance between the University’s brand and the ERM as an independent initiative through an expanded color palette, a photoshoot, typography, graphics and iconography. Although the ERM Initiative is an independent entity, it benefits from its affiliation with NC State. ERM stakeholders sought to leverage the University’s highly respected reputation to further bolster its profile. To achieve this visually, we moved away from ERM’s previous white-grey-red color scheme and injected more of the University’s brand elements, including accent colors, full color photographs, and header and footer styles. We liked the landscape elements from the original design, so we remixed and merged those with new applications of University brand elements.
Bird's Eye ViewAt A Glance
Note: Photos taken by Marc Hall, University Photographer, with art direction by me. The original SME photographs were rendered in black-and-white. The SME poses were authoritative and imposing. Given that SMEs are leading experts in a young industry, it was important to make them appear more accessible in the redesign. In collaboration with the University photographer, we encouraged the experts to assume more relaxed, inviting and personable poses. Web development efforts in collaboration with subcontractor. Digital Marketing efforts in collaboration with Organic Clicks.