Enhancing User Experience and User Engagement Through a Digital Rebrand
Appily (formerly Cappex) is a comprehensive platform, uniquely designed to guide students through the intricate college planning, selection, and application processes. It offers a diverse range of tools and resources, setting it apart from other platforms, to assist students in finding the most suitable colleges and scholarships. The platform’s core mission is to empower students through education, thereby making the journey to higher education more accessible and less perplexing.
Problem
Cappex, an EAB company, wanted to rebrand itself as a design-forward organization with a look and feel that was more aligned with the expectations of its key demographic (a youthful audience). COLAB was iteratively releasing enhancements to their existing Drupal site, so there was an easy on-ramp for our team to take on the challenge.
Solution
Our client didn’t need a complete redesign, and it wasn’t appropriate to start from scratch if we wanted to release the new site quickly. We decided to upgrade the existing website, using much of the foundation that was already there but completely changing the site’s aesthetic. Building on what exists was a complex feat, as the website has a significant amount of content and was fed data from an internal application that needed to remain in place and undisturbed.
Our collaboration with EAB was instrumental in the website rebranding process. We found innovative ways to integrate the newly established brand into the design without inflating the development budget. Balancing design and development is always a challenge, but one we are adept at. The result was a redesigned digital experience that effectively infused the energy and vibrancy of the new brand into the existing digital property.
Our previous work on the website centered on improving SEO and performance, among other things. We carefully considered this throughout the process, ensuring that existing successes were retained and became a foundation to support future progress.
Results
The redesign was a huge success. Beyond a vastly different look and feel, an informal result from the effort shows that leads from the website are considered up to ten times more valuable to universities (Appily’s customer base). We are proud of our work together and look forward to continued success in our relationship.