TIAA COLLEGE SAVINGS WEBSITES
A complete redesign and re-platform of six states’ websites
Challenge
TIAA manages college savings accounts for six U.S. states. Its websites were outdated, hard to navigate, overloaded with content, and not mobile-friendly. As a result, there was an average lag time of eight months between a user’s first visit and opening an account.
Solution
Our team redesigned and re-platformed the sites from the ground up. In a collaborative effort with strategy, UX, technology, and creative, we created websites for six states, each with its own unique brand and messaging. The result was a clean, modern, ADA-compliant and user-friendly website with intuitive navigation and concise and relevant content.
Strategy
I worked closely with strategy during the discovery phase to deep dive into consumers’ needs and goals through empathy interviews. We began mapping content into intuitive, easy-to-navigate sections based on:
- Consumer journeys
- Consumer personas
- Empathy interviews
- Content audit and strategy
UX
Using the updated content strategy, a new navigation structure and page templates were created. Layouts were designed with UX best practices in mind, including:
- Intuitive navigation
- Concise, relevant content targeted to top needs
- Visual storytelling
- ADA/Accessibility considerations
- Flexible template design functional across multiple states
- Mobile friendly
FINAL SCREEN DESIGNS
Once the UX was done, the creative team designed pages and components using each state’s brand guidelines.
Results
After launching the first website, we talked to the participants from the initial interviews to get their feedback. They appreciated the clean design with its accessible tone and relatable imagery. Key information is now quicker to access and easier to understand. All six states (Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Georgia, California, Michigan) are now live.
Here’s an example of one of the sites.
Oklahoma 529
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