Work in progressOctober 2026Some section links may be broken or include placeholder copy.

Janey’s Work

Case studies Carnegie Mellon University

Refreshing a global university’s web experience

Leading the Computing Services “At a Glance” project: a refreshed website, self-help resources, and print materials that introduced a new Vice President of Operations to the division’s work.

Client
Carnegie Mellon University
Role
Content, Communications, and Technical Documentation Manager
Timeframe
2016
Disciplines
Content strategy, Content management, Documentation, Marketing
The refreshed Computing Services materials: the website, the InfoCenter, CMS documentation, a services brochure, the 2016 Factbook, and an "At a Glance" infographic.
After: the refreshed website, internal InfoCenter, CMS documentation, and print materials.

Context

As part of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Computing Services supports the entire campus community with IT and web services. I led the division’s website refresh for faculty, staff, students, and the broader campus community. Its marketing materials also needed to reflect newer branding and updated service offerings.

The “At a Glance” project (the website refresh) showcases division details from year to year for prospective customers and the campus community through web and printed materials. The goals: give the new Vice President of Operations an easily digestible overview of the work Computing Services brought to Carnegie Mellon; update and modernize the staff, faculty, and student landing pages; and provide accessible self-help resources and training that reduce help center tickets.

Creating a unified experience was a self-imposed challenge; the main problem was time. The deadline was expedited to share with the new Vice President. I collaborated with C-suite executives on confidential data to include and provided options for layout and copy, all before printing a large volume of materials that were cut and bound by hand. With many service owners, program owners, and project managers involved, approvals and information took time.

The work

  • Identify goals

    What goes into a website refresh, and what else does it affect? We asked ourselves this to define and measure success. Service owners, program managers, site administrators, and others came together to set goals, make a plan, and collaborate on tasks. I worked across content management systems, design tools (mostly Adobe Creative Suite), and a printing company to create online and print materials for information and marketing.

    The Carnegie Mellon website on a laptop, tablet, and phone

  • Research and plan

    Mockups, card sorting for the taxonomy, campus community interviews, page performance metrics, and quality assurance testing.

    A whiteboard sketch of the site navigation: get started, services, how-to, downloads, secure computing, and system status

  • Audit, then update what exists

    Often there’s a lot of existing material that can be updated and reused instead of overhauled. I updated the homepage, content management, the self-help resource site, and an internal SharePoint repository, with content and page templates that matched web trends of the time but stayed easy for the campus community to scan.

    Existing "Services for Staff," "Services for Students," and "Services for Faculty" sheets
    The Campus Cloud brochure, folded open to its fee schedule

  • Create and test

    We needed assets for the students’ Getting Started experience and the internal SharePoint repository. I worked with a student intern on Getting Started videos and images for a student portal, and wrote ServiceNow help articles and service pages for the Lease IT service. Beyond QA-testing pages and reviewing content, I checked in with the Help Center on how their support article process was going with the changes.

    A line drawing of a smiling person at a laptop, made for the Getting Started assets
    A list of ServiceNow knowledge articles with their status

  • Solicit feedback, train, and iterate

    My team and I ran interviews to understand how effective the content changes were, then decided what to prioritize and incorporate. I trained the right people to use and maintain the new templates, styles, advertising materials, and other university-branded assets. Feedback and analytics shaped the plan for the next round of priorities and updates.

    Survey results for "What kinds of topics would you like to hear about at our upcoming All Staff Meeting?"
    CMS documentation explaining site-wide and page elements next to a sample page

Outcomes

  • All goals metthe new VP of Operations was impressed by the breadth and quality of services
  • 1 templateand a standard for future service marketing materials
  • The earlier service sheets, SharePoint services list, and Computing Services website
    Before: service sheets, a SharePoint list of services, and the earlier website. (After is at the top of this page.)

Looking back

Most of what I learned was about using the Adobe Creative Suite more efficiently. Questions I want to consider the next time I manage a project like this:

  • What could we achieve with a standardized CMS across the university?
  • With more time, what might the marketing materials look like instead?
  • If we partnered with a design team or an external agency, what might have happened differently?
  • How else could we have provided self-service support?

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