Vermont Student Assistance Corporation has been providing financial services to Vermont students for over 35 years. When they got online in 1998, their digital capabilities were limited. Their site was aptly conceived of as brochure wear. Fast forward five years. VSAC's online offering has outgrown their interface, the site is bursting at the seams.

Ask the End User

When VSAC asked us to help them redesign their site to better serve their audience, we set out a detailed game plan that started with researching the usability of the current site. To get a sense for how the VSAC audience uses the site we asked every user to complete a simple, one page questionnaire. The response rate was excellent.
       Next we tested the interface in front of a cross section of the VSAC user population. We interviewed education professionals to learn what features would help them with their students' quest for a college education.

Building for the User and the Corporation

Having learned what people liked and disliked about the current site, having learned what education professions needed from a redesign, we started prototyping interfaces based on a set of heuristics derived from our research. We tested these prototypes in front of users -- we tested the interfaces against the internal needs of this multifaceted organization until we arrived at a solution.

Finding the Right Technology

This was no mere facelift. The extent of the new VSAC site required a robust content management and publishing system. We helped VSAC define the parameters for their server-side solution. We helped them evaluate the software options until we found a solution that would grow with VSAC and would be easy to administer.