Griffith University

The Story

Griffith University had a clear vision for a new student portal: to empower students "to explore, connect and succeed."

To do this, they wanted to create a student portal that delivered a strong student experience while addressing the university’s varied business needs.

“…MyGriffith…is very impressive and brilliant work where you can find everything you need in one place! I used to get lost whilst searching for information on the Griffith website, this is no longer the case with the new MyGriffith platform. I am impressed by the creative minds who designed such a sophisticated platform in a simplified way! ” Griffith University Student

The Challenge

The portal needed to be:

Personalised for the individual student – remembering who they were and what they were studying.

Fast and accessible – from various devices, including computers, laptops, tablets and phones.

Task focused – enabling students to enrol, view their timetable or academic records, and access other Griffith University systems.

Technically integrated – pulling information from a wide range of disparate systems and present it via an easy-to-use interface.

To realise this vision, the University would need to identify all of the key tasks each student group had to perform and coordinate the numerous business areas across the university – no small feat.

The Solution

Squiz worked collaboratively with Peak Usability, as well as the myGriffith portal team, to apply a robust, user-centred design approach throughout the project.

A comprehensive
research program
Through 8 focus groups, a university-wide survey and key stakeholder interviews; to establish and design a final product that was intuitive, adaptable and responsive to the needs and requirements of the end user.

A user-centred
design approach
Squiz worked collaboratively with Peak Usability as well as the myGriffith portal team to apply a robust, user-centred design approach throughout the project.

Strategy first,
content second
Content strategy informed the way the portal’s wireframes would be laid out and Squiz ensured that each wireframe could function within the portal and deliver a great UX.

Built with existing infrastructure
As Griffith wished to utilise their existing infrastructure for the project to provide personalised content, it was necessary to write a single code path to handle the personalisation logic. Although complicated, the result proved hugely successful.

Personalisation is key
Editing and testing tools were designed to allow support staff to define a user by simulating over 30 different variables, so that they can create content targeted to meet each ones needs.

The Results

The myGriffith portal is a powerful new platform that allows Griffith University to communicate clearly and directly to different cohorts of student simultaneously.

The system is extendable to allow new widgets and more powerful personalisation, as the university brings more systems online and integrates them into the data API and the portal.

In addition, the portal integrates with 22 different systems and is easily viewed on multiple devices. One week after launch, 52.6% of polled students rated the new portal as ‘Excellent’ despite having to adjust to a completely new student experience in the midst of their semester.

The Technology

Squiz Matrix CMS's versatility enables it to pull together and integrate a large number of systems and databases to deliver students with all the information that they need in one place. Not only that, it's simple interface makes it easy to create a clean, modern site that students want to interact with.

The Services

Through working flexibly with multiple parties and clear project management, Squiz were able to partner with Griffith University to create and implement the solution that they wanted and deliver a student portal that met their goals.