Mobile adoption among high school teens has seen substantial gains over the last three years and a significant portion—52% by some accounts—of those high school students with smartphones and tablets are using those devices to research colleges. Recognizing that mobile devices may be the first touchpoint with prospective students and emboldened by a recent rebranding, Delaware Valley College (affectionately called “DelVal”) tapped Happy Cog to deliver a responsive website that would resonate with their audiences and tell the story of the college’s close-knit campus and tactile academic experience.
Delaware Valley College
Responsive higher education
Delaware Valley College
Each potential field of study is explained in-depth with the help of student video, real-world experiences, and alumni stories.
Going responsive wasn’t enough, to craft a compelling website meant making a memorable one. DelVal’s new look would be underserved by generic dot-edu tropes, so Happy Cog used the redesign as an opportunity to reevaluate the college’s approach to content strategy, creating surprising vehicles for cultural discovery such as a bold new calendar system and a curated social media wall to replace the banal “campus tour” slideshow popular among higher education institutions.
We designed an immersive college calendar with a fresh take on the traditional "calendar" gridded layout.
Happy Cog led us through a year-long process of collaboration between every audience on campus. Alumni, students, staff, faculty, and administration participated in some of the most energetic workshops we’ve ever seen. The outcome is a unique and compelling website that showcases stories about the work our students are doing in and out of the classroom, and all that DelVal has to offer.
– —Dr. Joseph S. Brosnan, President of Delaware Valley College
Every interaction was considered a chance to reinforce the DelVal brand and tell the student story. As DelVal moves toward university status in 2014, those interactions and future-friendly responsive design will continue to complement their efforts to welcome enthusiastic newcomers into the family.
Read about the redesign on DelVal’s website.
Student stories reinforce the positive impact Del Val alums can have on the world after their experience at the school.
The DelVal brand is extended even to the footer map style.