What Students Really Want

I just spent a few days reviewing and analyzing input from a series of recent online focus groups.  The focus groups were with college-bound high school students – second-year to fourth-year – who we had asked to react and respond to four carefully selected college websites.

Online focus groups are a great – low-cost – way to crawl inside the heads of your target audiences and understand how and why they respond to your most important recruitment tool – your website.  You should think about doing these on a regular basis.

The Test
We had the focus group participants visit four comparator websites (plus the client’s site) and react to a series of questions about each.  We selected four very different websites for our prospects to review:

1. One was very sophisticated, with high-concept design using graphic treatment instead of imagery, clear navigation, and an array of multimedia and the latest applications on second-level pages;
2. One was businesslike, with a traditional block layout built around a high-impact, attention-grabbing image and prominent text/image teasers guiding users along focused second-level information paths;
3. One displayed a distinctive and inviting brand personality carefully targeting the priority audience segment with inviting, colorful design and intriguing headlines, followed by an extensive list of links to all kinds of information;
4. One was visually busy, filled to brimming with images and eclectic design and typography spaces, news, spotlights, highlighted by conspicuous, inventive links for specific audience segments.

Which of these would you guess got the highest marks for interest and usability?

Winners and Losers
While each of the sites generated positive comments, two of them jumped out at prospects as far-and-away superior in interest, impact, and usability:  The second and third of the four website described above (I’ll send you the urls we tested if you email me by clicking here)!   Surprised?

The website that communicated a distinctive brand personality (#3 above) created the strongest positive impact and “buzz” with participants.  And to address the obvious objection, it even fared well with those who weren’t in the target segment and didn’t resonant with the personality!  Everyone appreciated the fact that the college conveyed pride and openness about their distinctive world view.  “You know right away what’s important to them, and what they stand for.  That’s great,” said one.

Unfortunately, that website lost its appeal just as fast due to its extensive list of poorly organized links, which required too much reading to be worth the effort!   The students didn’t bother with trying to find information; they simply gave up, and fast.

The second winner in our mini-sweepstakes was the traditionally designed workmanlike site that gained power from a single, high-quality branded image and clean navigation.  Based in large part on the impact of the great image, students said the layout projected sophistication, prestige, and elegance.  And unlike #3, this site kept visitors engaged by presenting a clear, logical information flow.  Students liked the pathways to important information in quick, intuitive steps.

The biggest loser was the sophisticated, high-concept site (#1 above).  High school students are so used to reading and interpreting imagery that the absence of it turned them off.   They immediately judged the site to be boring and unimaginative despite the attempt at a chic graphic style.  Too bad, since most participants weren’t interested enough to get to the next level, which was engaging, attractive, fun, and filled with innovative multimedia attractions.   What a waste!

The moral of our focus group study?

Four basic factors have huge impact within 20–30 seconds of a prospect opening your page on their browser:

1. Conveying your unique brand personality through design, content, color
2. Strong, branded imagery that intrigues and/or conveys emotion
3. Concise, conversational copy that gets to the point fast
4. Clear navigational paths to the information that students want most

OK, so that brings up another crucial question:  What information do prospects want most from a website?

The answer – which may surprise you – will have to wait until my next blog post…stay tuned!