A new era for the Fondation Université Paris Cité website!

The Université Paris Cité Foundation: promoting academic excellence and innovation

The mission of the Fondation Université Paris Cité is to support and promote the Université Paris Cité by strengthening its teaching, research and innovation projects.

It promotes academic excellence by encouraging initiatives that enrich the student experience and the quality of training. Working closely with patrons and partners, the Foundation contributes to the development of ambitious programs, the creation of scholarships and the improvement of university infrastructures, while supporting research and innovation within the institution.

Creation date

March 2020

Sector of activity

Non-profit public foundation in the field of university research and higher education

Technologies used

WordPress

Elementor

Figma

Stripe

Project skills

Design
UI/UX
Development
Project management

Modernization of the Foundation's website: background and objectives of the redesign

The Université Paris Cité Foundation wanted to give its website a facelift to bring its web design into line with its new graphic charter. The aim was to update the site so that it fully reflected the foundation's values of excellence and met the needs of its various target audiences. Although the existing site was effective and relevant, the redesign aimed to refine the navigation path and strengthen the foundation's online presence.

After a successful first collaboration, the foundation called on us again to bring this redesign project to life.

The main objectives of this redesign were as follows:

A reworked web design at the service of the user experience

Following our UI/UX methodology, we organized several workshops to define the site's personas, main users and targets. This definition phase enabled us to design a navigation path that best responds to the needs of Internet users, in order to maximize conversions specific to each profile. This is a particularly interesting exercise, as it raises questions about the site's underlying objectives and the content to be produced, as well as its structure.

Once the tree structure had been validated, the focus shifted to developing the graphic design. Several home page proposals were drawn up by our UX specialist, enabling us to test different visual approaches. The final choice was a modern version incorporating dynamic graphic elements and bright colors. This choice perfectly reflects the foundation's initial wish: to give the website a boost to capture visitors' attention and make their experience more immersive and engaging.

Before and after: a new look for the site!

New charter, new itinerary, updated content:the Foundation's website is ready for the start of the new school year!

The Smotly methodology: agile, dynamic project management

For this project, we once again applied our agile methodology based on three main phases: design, production, deployment. This agile approach offers maximum flexibility and rapid adaptation to changes in the project, favoring iterative feedback cycles and close collaboration with our customers. Here are the main project milestones:

Requirements scoping workshop: In-depth briefing, presentation of the foundation, assessment of the existing situation and definition of the expected technical and functional scope.

Creative workshops: Definition of personas and value proposition, construction of wireframes, arbitration of home page, and presentation of mock-ups.

Integration: Integration of the site in accordance with the validated mock-ups, compliance with eco-design & responsive practices, interfacing with OHME CRM, Stripe implementation and creation of a 100% customized back-office for autonomous management of template pages.

Recipe phase: Intensive testing with a beta version to guarantee the site's end-to-end quality and functionality.

WordPress back office customization for team autonomy

When we began the project to customize the WordPress back office for the Fondation Université Paris Cités, we took an in-depth look at the site's architecture. We identified two main categories of pages: single pages (or corporate pages) and template pages. Templates are pre-established models that define a fixed page structure while leaving space for variable content, thus ensuring visual consistency and uniformity across all pages created from these models.

Unlike single pages, which evolve from time to time with minor updates, template pages need to be duplicated frequently to present various projects, chairs or news. The use of templates ensures greater security by maintaining a consistent, responsive presentation. Foundation teams can manage and update content autonomously, thanks to a simplified back office. Modifications to variable elements (such as images, text and descriptions) can be made directly, without the need for complex interventions. This minimizes the risk of errors and greatly simplifies site management!

The foundation can maintain an up-to-date, professional and consistent site, while offering maximum flexibility to its users.

The project +

The final word?

After many years of trust, I naturally called on the expertise and professionalism of the Smotly team to redesign our website. Just to mention a few of their strong points: a rapid and optimal understanding of our needs and objectives, a precise 360° vision, effective day-to-day support, expert and relevant advice, a dynamic, innovative and hyper-responsive team(special mention of course to my two top team-mates, Floriane and Estelle!), a respected schedule and practical, easy-to-use work tools.

This project is coming to an end, and the result exceeds our expectations. I'm looking forward to working with Smotly on new projects in the very near future!

Johanna Lévy
Communications, Marketing & Events Manager

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