Unique Student Experiences are the only Competitive Advantage
At the Gilfus Education Group we believe that the student user experience is the only sustainable competitive advantage a academic institution can employ in the online world today. Maintaining that competitive advantage means constantly monitoring, evaluating, and improving the student user experience. Successful student experiences result from creating inherently simple and logical interactive environments that exceed student user expectations and create an intimate connection with the user. The digital plumbing of today's complex technology fades to the back allowing dynamic, simple, intuitive, intimate experiences. Such experiences are accomplished through careful strategy, research, design, and technology. That’s what we do best.
“Never before has there been such an eruption of education innovation from institutions and companies of all sizes,” said Stephen Gilfus, President and CEO of the Gilfus Education Group. “I sincerely believe that we have now entered the ‘dot edu’ era which will stimulate and transform students, instructors, institutions and the global economy to reach new horizons.”, "For the first time academic institutions are taking precise control of their web presence and student learning experience as online competitiveness increases."
Stephen Gilfus
President and CEO
Unified and Optimized Online Student Experiences
Web users demand intuitive online experience consistent with brand expectations and offline interaction, making a complementary, user-centered web and new media strategy more important than ever. An effective strategy has no end date. Our strategies work to eradicate yesterday’s problems, while remaining flexible enough to address tomorrow’s opportunities.
The Gilfus Education Group's proven process emphasizes regular communication with key project stakeholders and consensus-building activities that ensure progress. Our experts are adept at working with large stakeholder groups, and facilitating decision making to drive change. We advise clients from an experienced perspective to minimize their risks and maximize their opportunities with programs in content consolidation, demand generation, social commerce, and much more. Our guidance can help create effective governance policies and practices that promote collaboration and organization.
Our digital strategy services include:
- Web Property Unification and Information Architecture
- User experience engagement across the student lifecycle.
- Web Consolidation strategies and roadmaps
- Social Media Integration and Management
- Mobile Integration and channel development
Intimate and Engaging Brand Strategies
Creating a memorable brand strategy that users build loyalty with begins with identifying a brand’s most compelling attributes and expressing them creatively through an online user experience. This expression combines the organizations position with a visual brand and the positive behavioral attributes to which the brand aspires. The best brands have mastered the art of aligning user expectations to organizational performance, allowing for differentiation among competition and relevant perception by users.
For web environments, brands rarely have the luxury of exclusivity. They must work within a distributed brand architecture, a hierarchy by which brands, products, services and subsidiaries are managed within an organization. Brand architecture also includes the development of nomenclature systems and taxonomies to delineate the respective functions of Master Brands, Endorser Brands, and Constellation Brands, all of which may be performing simultaneously within a multi-branded environment.
Our brand strategy services include:
- Online brand identities
- Brand architecture to support multi-brand ambitions
- Standards and guidelines to ensure consistent brand performance
Competitive Positioning
Competitive positioning is the art of determining the best way to compete in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. It is almost always a subtractive process that involves focus and prioritization. It’s about carving out a unique spot in the competitive landscape and creating a strategy that distinguishes an organization from its competition.
We advise businesses and other organizations on strategies for articulating points of differentiation and tactics designed to create value for their markets. In particular, we are skilled at developing unique and innovative means of using the tools of digital media to secure and defend a positioning platform.
Our competitive positioning services include:
- Market profiling
- Student segmentation
- Competitive analysis
- Market Positioning strategy
- Value proposition and business case development
Student and User Research
User research allows us to identify relevant predictors of consumer behavior based on actual patterns, rather than relying on educated guesses or opinions. These actionable insights become fundamental in forming the strategy, concept, and design of superior sites. Behavioral research is a synthesis of quantitative and qualitative methodologies designed to provide insight into individual and group behaviors. User research is an integral part of our design process and allows us to uncover audience motivations, behavioral patterns, and problems or roadblocks. In every project, we tailor our approach to the client's specific needs using a variety of methods and tools.
Our user and behavioral research services include:
- User interviews
- Focus groups
- Online surveys
- Contextual interviews
- Task analysis
- Card sort exercises
- Heuristic assessments
- Web analytics review
- Social network and media analysis
Our user research methodology utilizes such tactics as focus groups, one-on-one interviews, online surverys, and usability testing on clickable prototypes.
Persona Development
Through persona development, we identify and describe various audience groups. These personas influence the information architecture and design of a site, allowing it to be optimized for each distinct group. Personas are fictional characters that represent site users. They can take into consideration users’ goals, behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and context. Personas can reveal users that you may not see from just reviewing site analytics and other performance indicators. They also provide an opportunity for stakeholders to focus around the user needs. Along with user research, personas play a part in forming the foundation for the strategy and concept for the site. Usability Testing Usability testing uncovers usability issues of a site or site design by allowing us to observe representative users interacting with a site through tasks. Testing designs early and often produces the best results, allowing them to be refined to satisfy user needs. Usability testing up front can save time and money, ultimately increasing user satisfaction. A project’s goals determine the type of testing that we perform. We can test current live sites to create a baseline, discover current usability issues, and uncover audience expectations. We test at all the stages of design and on various mediums, from paper prototyping to interactive visual designs. Our usability testing services include: Moderated and unmoderated usability testing In-person or remote testing Testing at various stages of the design process
