Arcadia University
A Beautiful Platform, Inside and Out
Redesigning Arcadia.edu and reimagining the CMS.
Start to Finish
Spark451 teamed up with Arcadia to rebuild Arcadia.edu from the ground up. The result: a fully responsive, media-rich site with a hyper-flexible template system built on the Drupal 7 CMS.
Engagement is notably up since the site relaunched. Visitors are spending 60 percent more time on pages, and the site’s average bounce rate has dropped 40 percent.
The Program Finder
Academics take center stage on the new Arcadia.edu. Before the redesign, Arcadia used static pages to present majors and degree programs. The approach made it hard for editors to maintain content and gave users a disjointed experience.
The program finder transforms how the site showcases academics. It’s a single destination for prospective students to explore majors and programs. Filters let them drill down to programs that match their interests. A unified information architecture provides consistency, so users know what to expect from program to program.
Spark451 immediately became a part of our team. Their collaborative approach engaged our whole campus community — from students to scholars. They also provided an exceptional level of customer service. We are pleased to have them as creative partners.
— Laura Baldwin , Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Arcadia University
CMS Optimized for Great Content and Editing
Spark451 developed a comprehensive systems of components to upgrade the out-of-the-box Drupal editing experience. The system gives tremendous power to editors to customize landing and sub pages. At the same time, it ensures a cohesive look and feel for site visitors.
MyArcadia: Portal Rebuild and Integration
Along with the external-facing Arcadia website, Spark451 rebuilt the university’s internal portal: MyArcadia. Intended as a place for news and information relevant to students, faculty, staff, and trustees, it needed a big update. Among the new features is a dashboard that users can personalize with widgets for things like social media feeds and links to helpful pages and sites.
40%
bounce rate decrease
60%
increase in time spent on a page
Go Beyond: Branding Exploration
We began the Arcadia.edu multi-part project by crafting a new branding campaign. The central theme “Go Beyond” speaks to the university’s leadership in study abroad and its student-centered educational philosophy.