Sante Fe, NM: Consumer51, an international consumer-experience company with business operations in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Indiana, announced the launch of a new website for New Mexico Higher Education Department. The State Department had selected Consumer51 to help design its new online presence.
The goal of the new website is to provide a wealth of information to state residents in a contemporary, user-friendly way. The new website will effectively communicate what NMHED offers, valuable services it provides to the state, and ways to utilize resources offered through the site, as well as what events.
Ari Banerjee, CEO of Consumer51, discussed the work done by the team, saying, “Our team worked closely with the department and their users to understand how to provide the most value to the user. The new site aligns with user behavior and current digital best practices. We’re really proud of the work we’ve put into this project and are excited to see the impact it will make on education in the state.”
The website fosters a connection between the state and its residents, the NMHED mission is to “provide financial, academic, and policy oversight and support to the New Mexico public higher education institutions and our formal community partners for the purpose of promoting efficiency, accountability, and student success.” Consumer51 worked through an iterative design process in a phased manner to redesign and rebuild the information-heavy (over 160 pages) website. Through the process of several user interviews in the discovery phase, the Consumer51 team was able to determine the site’s priorities and primary audiences. The site is built on the ExpressionEngine content management system, an enterprise platform known for its performance and security. Consumer51 is also the world’s first Platinum Partner of the ExpressionEngine CMS and has built several projects on the open-source platform. In addition to building and deploying the site, the Consumer51 team trained a large internal team to migrate content from the existing site.
“We could not have picked a better vendor to help us create and migrate to a modern – attractive, engaging, functional, easy-to-use, and responsive – website,” said Bogi Malecki, NMHED’s Director of Information Services. “Everyone we’ve worked with on the Consumer51 team was accessible, enthusiastic, professional, and highly knowledgeable, a real pleasure to work with. They made a complex project an unqualified success by smoothly and seamlessly meeting all the requirements within budget, on schedule and with no major issues. Consumer51 is top-notch and we are delighted to have them as our partner.”
Having completed this massive overhaul, the teams are currently working on implementing additional functionality, such as an enhanced calendar system, supporting pages, optimized design, that will roll out in subsequent releases.
About New Mexico Higher Education Department: NMHED’s goals are to foster and guide a system of higher education that best meets the needs of people in the state of New Mexico. With locations in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, the agency has a number divisions, including Adult Education, GEAR UP, Private and Proprietary Schools, Indian Education, Institutional Finance, and Financial Aid.
About Consumer51: Consumer51 LLC is a privately held consumer-experience company, providing marketing and technology solutions for today's connected world. The company provides a wide range of services including web design, web development, web hosting, domain registration, email management, user experience design, mobile application development, brand identity design, inbound marketing, creative services and consulting to clients ranging from startups to Fortune 50 brands. For more information about Consumer51, visit http://www.consumer51.com.