SUNY Westchester Community College

Reimagining WCC’s website as an inclusive, accessible platform that simplifies the user journey for students and supports the college’s broader enrollment and community engagement goals.

Overview

Westchester Community College partnered with Spark451 to reimagine its institutional website as a more inclusive, accessible, and student-centric experience. The previous site architecture made it difficult for users to find accurate information quickly, resulting in a frustrating experience for prospective students, families, and community members.

Our objective was to transform the site into a modern and scannable platform that reflects WCC’s welcoming tone, encourages exploration, and helps guide users toward key conversion points such as applying, requesting information, and registering. In parallel, the site needed to uphold WCC’s commitment to accessibility, equity, and digital excellence.

Services

Web Design
Information Architecture
Wireframing
Content Strategy
User Research
Documentation

Timeframe

June 2023 – August 2025

Challenge

Westchester Community College (WCC) needed a complete overhaul of its institutional website to better serve prospective and current students, faculty, and the surrounding community. The existing site suffered from poor mobile usability, fragmented navigation, and unclear content hierarchy. Key student pathways—such as how to apply, request info, or register—were buried under legacy content and inconsistent language. WCC also faced internal challenges: dozens of departments needed to align under a unified voice and structure, all while maintaining WCAG compliance and meeting the SUNY system’s digital expectations.

Strategy

Our core strategic approach was anchored in three pillars:

Attract & Guide Prospective Students
Create clear, action-driven content pathways to help users discover programs, apply, or request information with fewer clicks.
Support Internal Stakeholders
Ensure current students, faculty, and staff can find what they need quickly, reducing the volume of calls and emails.
Elevate Digital Brand Voice
Humanize WCC’s content tone to reflect its inclusive, student-first identity—making sure the voice is confident, clear, and helpful.

We used WCC’s Writing for the Web Guide to unify tone across departments, while building a scalable page structure that worked for both centralized and distributed content owners.

Design

With mobile-first responsiveness and accessibility as top priorities, we developed wireframes and page templates tailored to user journeys and content scanning behavior. The visual design emphasized large imagery centered around community, clear headings, and CTAs were balanced by brand-consistent typography and flexible content modules. We created modular design systems across all templates to ensure consistency while allowing for flexible storytelling across departments. Designs were reviewed with stakeholders and iterated based on feedback loops built into our sprint cycles.

Build

The site was developed using a responsive grid and built for performance, accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA), and search engine optimization (SEO). Custom templates were created for high-traffic areas and powered by a CMS that allowed distributed content editing. Forms were streamlined to reduce friction for requests and applications. Navigation was restructured into a simplified global menu, with additional utility nav for frequently accessed resources like MyWCC, Blackboard, and Student Email. Page titles, meta descriptions, and internal links were optimized to boost search visibility and ensure students could find WCC’s offerings more easily through organic search.

Outcome

Post-launch feedback indicated improved ease of navigation, better alignment with WCC’s brand values, and fewer user-reported issues. Departments expressed appreciation for the unified tone and flexible templates. The redesign now serves as a digital front door for the college’s student-focused mission—welcoming thousands of prospective and current users each day with clarity, accessibility, and purpose.

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