My involvement with Raffles

From 2011 - April 2011, I taught at Raffles College of Design and Commerce. For the last 18 months of that period, I was employed on a permanent part-time basis, as both lecturer and designer. My primary role as designer was to redesign and develop a new website for the college. I also produced a range of print materials for Raffles, including marketing collateral, promotional material and advertising.

As Senior Digital Media Lecturer and assistant to the Head of Digital Media, Professor Peter Cameron, my role involved the development of curriculum and teaching materials for web design and multimedia subjects, face-to-face lecturing and tutorials, training sessions for staff and students in using the eLearning campus, student liaison and departmental administrative duties.

Raffles website

With over 700 students and 200 staff, Raffles College of Design and Commerce wanted to utilise digital media, the web, eLearning and social media to;

• present a living academic environment
• showcase the high level of creativity produced in the college and the high standard of education offered
• actively engage students and encourage participation in using online learning resources
• develop a vibrant and dynamic digital community
• provide tools and resources for staff to aid teaching

The approach

To achieve this, Bea Pierce;

• Developed a strategic approach and holistic design philosophy specifically designed to;
  • pro-actively invite and encourage student and teacher participation in eLearning
  • provide each faculty with a distinct voice, vechicle for communication and opportunity to educate and inform potential students about different courses and design approaches
  • ensure that the site was useful, logical, easy to use and accessible as both a marketing tool and vehicle for enrolments
• Developed an information structure and navigation design that;
  • made moving around the site and finding relevant information easy and intuitive
  • emphasised the main areas of information sought by different user groups
  • included quick link options to take users directly to specific courses or important information such as fees
  • provided multiple ways of accessing information while minimising confusion, click-throughs and the need to backtrack
• Created multiple visual design styles that actively;
  • demonstrated inspiring levels of creativity in student work
  • showcased each different discipline within the college
  • appealed to a young audience of current and potential students
• Built the site in Joomla to;
  • utilise sophisticated content management capabilities
  • enable single-sign in and complex user management for integrated services including Moodle eLearning campus and Google (Calendar, Docs, Gmail)
  • allow functionality such as slideshows, image galleries, embedded video
• Integrated social media to instantly inform and connect with students, teachers and staff
• Developed and implemented custom templates to the Moodle eLearning system
• Conducted usability testing during the design process, prior to launch and after launch
• Thoroughy tested the site to adhere to Raffles’ stringent requirements for standards-compliant validation, accessibility, browser cross-compatibility and bandwidth load testing, and ensured SEO metadata was in place throughout the site to increase ‘findability’ via Google search
• Provided training in using the Joomla administration tools to marketing staff, and conducted workshops with students and teachers in how to use the Moodle eLearning facilities.

The end result

Feedback from usability testing and current students/staff after the launch of stage 2 has largely been positive;

• The website has been very well received by current students and staff, who like the overall look and how easy it is to use
• There is a steady increase in both students and staff actively using the student campus, eLearning tools and Google mail
• Communication between the college and its staff and students has improved dramatically

"I must say there's been a fantastic transgression from what we originally had (the original KvB website was hopeless) to what we have now! We engaged you as an expert in the field and moved forward fast with a fabulous result! I have noticed a significant increase in domestic enquiries (by phone and online) in the last few weeks. The new look and restructure of the site combined with SEO seems to be working well. A very big thanks again."

- Coral Cooksley, National Marketing Manager

"Certainly its come in for considerable praise. We now have a very sophisticated website that looks great and is long overdue. You can certainly add my endorsement, particularly of the way it highlights the ‘personality’ of each discipline and shows student work."

- Professor Peter Cameron, Program Director, Digital Media

Referee: Professor Peter Cameron, Program Director, Digital Media, Raffles College of Design and Commerce

Visit the site: www.raffles.edu.au

Marketing materials

Marketing materials for Open Day 2010

Showbag design to house collateral

Digital Media flyer 2010

Raffles posters 2010

Advertising

Raffles advertisement for Digital Media 2011

Raffles advertising campaign for 2010

Raffles international advertisements 2010