The Université de Saint-Boniface was at a crossroads: it had a high number of applications, a vibrant on-campus community, and personalized services that embodied its value proposition, ‘une université à taille humaine’ – a human-sized university. Yes, students often preferred talking to a real person when trying to find information or accomplish a task, rather than finding the info on the website, but for this institution, that was not necessarily a bad thing; it actually represented a strength that reinforced USB’s messaging, and keeping the website’s positioning as a stepping stone to a person was not something we wanted to ‘optimize’ or change!

Yes, the site needed to be updated, to better integrate user experience and align with the latest accessibility standards. The challenge became: how can we help articulate the university’s identity in its primary digital touchpoint while conserving its essence as a brand that was already working?

This redesign involved threading a delicate line between bringing the online experience for USB up to speed – modern, UX standards, accessibility – while preserving its main strength, its ability to connect people, all from a bilingual perspective. Furthermore, designing a completely bilingual website would not even match the mandate and vision of the institution, which needs to first and foremost promote the French language in a majority anglophone environment. Evolving Web, in collaboration with the University’s web team, tackled this project with a light touch, applying digital best practices but also knowing when to pull back and ensure the new website stayed faithful to a strong brand focused on in-person connection.

Learn how this multi-year ongoing project will transform the website into yet another proof point reinforcing the values of the university, better articulating who they are for current and potential members of the community, with concrete examples of how less can most certainly be more.