The object of the Sea, Air & Land Challenge Capstone is to update the website using a user-centered approach and to develop an effective marketing strategy to recruit more participants.
Sponsored By: Susan Zingaro
Team Members
Ryan Cohen | Linyuan Yu | Pei-Yuan Hung | Zihao Zhang | Victoria Mayer | | | | | | |
Project Poster
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Project Summary
Overview
The SeAL Challenge is an Office of Naval Research sponsored program in which high school students learn the engineering process through the design relevant to the Department of Defense. The program’s primary means of delivery to its participants is web-based, and the website has not had a major update in many years. Our team was tasked with updating the website through a user-centered approach that would not only be easier for participants to navigate the program, but also coordinators to organize and run it. In addition to the web update, a thorough and strategic marketing campaign will allow current program organizers to recruit and develop even more participants across the country.
Objectives
-Assess the primary layout of the current website and identify weaknesses
-Redesign the website based on the weaknesses found focused around the user experience
-Develop additional features into the new website including: Photo Section, Calendar, Regional Coordinator Blog, Pre and Post-Challenge Surveys
-Develop a marketing plan to increase awareness and participation of program at the high school level
Approach
-Learned about the objectives of the SeAL challenge from the sponsor
-Gathered customer requirements through meetings with sponsor, agreed upon specific deliverables
-Reviewed the existing website and through various “user” journeys to identify weaknesses
-Broke the website into three specific user categories: Student, Educator, and Regional Coordinator
-Designed the new website with a focus on these three user categories
-Performed the development of new website utilizing Agile Scrum Methodology which enabled the team to receive iterative feedback from the customer every sprint (week)
-Developed a marketing campaign by collaborating with current program organizers
-Created a promotional video, online flyer, and potential participants list all aimed at increasing participation for the program at the high school level
Outcomes
-The new website enables the sponsor to have all information including registration, survey results, and calendar on one WordPress system
-The sponsor has an entirely published and redesigned website that is focused around the users with additional features
-Created a marketing campaign that can increase high school participation in a number of regions