Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59881
layer," says Hainer. The ongoing chal- lenge, he adds, is to use navigation tools and design to keep the site's information accessible yet controlled, and the user experience uncluttered yet compelling. Members of the Wharton community can access Spike's Intranet environment from their own devices, or view it on plasma screens within Huntsman Hall, the school's central building. "We also had to ward off attempts to add content. So many thought their programs deserved a top-level link, but we were more worried about users. If you present users with a sea of links, you won't give them a good experience." The Sloan School's solution was to create a home page that includes only seven links on the left side, and a "Spotlight" box that includes a news teaser. However, once users place a mouse arrow on one of those links, a new tree of links appears. This layering effect, accomplished through Flash technology, allows the Sloan School's home page to remain visually simple while maximizing access to information. When Harvard Business School launched its new home page at www.hbs.edu last February, the school's objective was to simplify its navigation and add links to two new sections of the site, titled "Who We Are" and "The Case Method." Like the Sloan School's site, the HBS site incorporates many links within a simple design: When users first come to the site, the bottom of the home page is free of text. However, once they click a small link called "School at a Glance," the lower right fills with additional links to the school's various programs, centers, and departments. Sam Hainer, associate director of Web strategy at HBS, says that the goal was to make the page user-friendly, quick, and reflective of the school's mission. "The home page needs to point users clearly in the right direction, while also making sure that key information about HBS is presented on the top Cultivating Connections Perhaps the most significant trend in busi- ness school Web site design is customer relationship management. Rather than merely using sites to facilitate one-time interactions with users, more business schools are using their sites as spring- boards to developing ongoing customer relationships. Once prospective students enter an e-mail address, they transition into a more refined marketing environ- ment, where they receive e-mails inform- ing them of school accomplishments or Flash presentations about student life. "We are seeing a strong trend toward CRM," says Malafarina of Ripple Effects. "Schools are staying with prospective students from the moment they request an application until they matriculate. They want to create such excitement that students won't even wait to hear from other schools before deciding to enroll." Kidd of the Owen School agrees that a primary function of its new site is to foster similar ongoing connections. "We're using a lot of direct mail and other outreach efforts to drive prospective students to the site," Kidd says. "Once they get there, we want to give them all the information they need to understand that this is the place for them. Our marketing campaign is in place so that more visits to the site result in online applications. Our goal isn't so much to generate repeat visits as it is to get prospective students to the site and inter- ested in building an ongoing relationship with us." The current boom in Web site redesign is widespread and ongoing among business schools, as schools move their sites from the periphery to the focal point of their branding and marketing strategies. At the same time, they must assimilate hundreds, often thousands, of pages of content into easily navigable and ostensibly simple online environments. That's no small task. But as schools realize that their traditional four-color printed brochures may survive only minutes before going from mailbox to trashcan, they know their Web sites will be their best opportunity to reach users where they now so often live—online. ■ z BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005 35