Navigation Information Architecture Restructure
Project Overview
Simon's website navigation was set up in a way that wasn't beneficial to prospective students trying to find the graduate school that best fit their needs. The information architecture was tailored more toward recruitment needs and internal links, which confused and often deterred potential prospects. Key sections like admissions and career outcomes had no top-level visibility, even though these are some of the factors prospects say matter most when picking a graduate school. I led a restructure of the information architecture, focused on the primary navigation and built around a prospect-first structure.
To complete this project, I benchmarked the Simon website against three sources: prospect survey data on how students search for information, the factors prospects say matter most when selecting a business school, and data from top business schools that share Simon's values. I then ran extensive GA4 analysis of the Simon website over the past year to identify where prospects were looking for information, pinpoint the problem areas in the structure, and build the recommendations I brought to Simon's leadership team for approval.
My Role
I was the UX designer responsible for the site's design system and information architecture, and I led this project from start to finish. That included the GA4 analysis, the peer research, and pulling in third-party research on what applicants prioritize. I also wrote the proposal, updated the design system, worked with the admissions and marketing teams, and presented the case to leadership for approval.
Tools: Figma, GA4, Drupal 9, Excel, third-party prospect research, peer audits, stakeholder interviews.
The Opportunity
The old Simon navigation didn't have a clear visual hierarchy between the primary and utility navigation, and it was built more around how Simon works internally than around what prospective students need. There was a real opportunity to shift the focus toward prospects and meet them where they are in their school search.
There were clear signs the structure wasn't working for prospects or for Simon staff. Our GA4 data showed that the primary traffic acquisition for pages like Admissions were from organic search and direct links. This suggested that admissions counselors had started sending students direct page links because users were not able to find key admissions pages through the navigation. The content was already there and it was solid, it just wasn't easy to find. Cleaning up the structure would fix that, and it helps both the staff who point people to it and the prospective students trying to learn about the school.
Section | Views | % of top nav section traffic |
|---|---|---|
Academics | 525,961 | 75% |
Admissions | 72,424 | 10% |
Blogs | 21,142 | 3% |
Why Simon | 17,647 | 3% |
Career Outcomes | 16,505 | 2% |
Events | 15,778 | 2% |
Faculty & Research | 14,091 | 2% |
Recruitment | 8,627 | 1% |
Alumni | 6,413 | 1% |
News & Highlights | 1,910 | 1% |
The Impact
Leadership signed off on the full proposal, including the faculty and marketing leads. It covered a redesign of every major section of the site, each one reworked to actually serve the people using it. Admissions was the biggest piece. It moved up to the top level to have an easier entry point for users. The content prospects look for most is one click away instead of buried inside program pages. Career Outcomes moved up alongside it, refocused on actual student outcomes rather than the recruiter-facing content it used to lead with.
The rest of the sections got the same treatment. About was reworked to be strictly institutional, so it holds the school-level information people expect there instead of a mix of unrelated content. Faculty and Research focused on bringing the areas-of-research pages back to life, which came out of something I noticed in the data: the school was putting a lot of effort into blog content students weren't really reading. That pointed to a better use of that effort, and leadership agreed to wind the blogs down and rebuild the areas-of-research pages instead, since that content is one of Simon's real strengths and it had gone stale. And Alumni shifted toward alumni support and giving, which is what that audience actually comes to the section for.
The Strategy
Updated navigation structure with hero image.
Every recommendation came from three things lining up: what the analytics showed about how people used the site, what the research said prospective students care about, and how peer schools set up their own navigation. When all three agreed, I knew the change was worth making. From there, the decisions were pretty clear:
Admissions and Career Outcomes moved to the top level. Aside from Academics, Admissions was the best-performing section on the whole site, even though it was tucked away as a secondary link. Peer schools that only serve graduate students consistently put Admissions up top, and Simon is graduate-only but was set up more like a school with both undergrad and grad audiences.
"Why Simon" became "About." The old label didn't test well when we looked at clearer, more direct wording. "About" is what most peer schools use, and it's what prospects expect to see, so the switch made the section easier to find and understand. We wanted to ensure global consistency, understanding prospects would be jumping across different schools, so we did not want to be the only one using unique labels.
Faculty and Research stayed up top but got flagged for a second phase. The school's research is one of the things that sets Simon apart, but almost three-quarters of the section's traffic went to the faculty directory while the research pages underneath sat outdated. The phase-two work brings faculty in to help surface the research actually happening at the University.
News and Highlights got broken up. The label was vague and covered a mix of content that wasn't really news, so those pieces went to sections where they made more sense.
Measurement
I knew from the start I'd need a way to measure whether any of this worked, so I leaned on three sources that each told me something different. The GA4 data showed how people were actually using the site, with a full year of baseline numbers covering views, sessions, bounce, engagement, and the paths people took through each section. I ran a peer audit of how similar graduate business schools set up their navigation, which gave me a sense of what works outside of Simon. And a prospective student survey, run by an outside research partner, told me what applicants actually care about when they're looking at a program, so the decisions were based on real preferences instead of guesses.
Using all three together is what made the recommendations hold up. Any one source on its own could be picked apart, but when the site data, the peer audit, and what students said all pointed the same way, it was hard to argue with. After launch, I'll track the same GA4 numbers across a full enrollment cycle and check each section against its baseline to see whether the changes are working.
Implementation
Once it was approved, we rolled the changes out in phases heading toward the fall 2026 launch. Instead of flipping everything at once, the changes go live section by section, which keeps unfinished pages off the site while the work is still in progress. It breaks into three tiers, roughly by how much lift each change takes.
Tier 1 Quick structural changes. These rearrange content that already exists, so they're low-risk and go first to get some early wins on the board.
Tier 2 Heavier design work. Led by the Admissions rebuild, where the top-level admissions experience gets fully redesigned.
Tier 3 Longer-term work. Reviving the Faculty and Research pages, which needs deeper collaboration with faculty and a new video series of professors talking about their research.
Section | Change |
|---|---|
About (formerly Why Simon) | Renamed to match how peer schools label the section |
Alumni | Streamlined the existing content based on GA4 findings |
Recruitment | Moved into the "Info For" dropdown for specialty audiences |
News & Highlights | Content redistributed by audience intent |
Admissions | Elevated to the top nav with a hub-style page for different audiences |
Career Outcomes | Elevated to top-level to support what the prospect survey found |
Faculty & Research | Streamlined existing content and revived the areas-of-research pages |
Key Takeaways
A few things made this project work. Pulling from all three sources at once, the site data, the student research, and the peer audit, is what gave the recommendations weight. Anything resting on just one source is easy to push back on, but when all three said the same thing, there wasn't much left to argue about. Digging into the individual pages, not just the section averages, did the same thing, since the findings held up no matter how closely anyone looked.
The project was also a good reminder that IA work is rarely just about structure. Cutting the underperforming blogs and putting that effort into faculty research wasn't part of the original ask, but it came out naturally once the data was in front of us. When you treat information architecture as a strategy problem and not just a wayfinding one, that's where the bigger opportunities show up.
Future Considerations
The main next step is the Faculty and Research revival in phase two, including the faculty video series and a real plan for keeping that content up to date. After that, there's room to keep adjusting the nav based on how it performs after launch, bring behavioral tools like Microsoft Clarity into the rest of the site, and keep making decisions about what content is worth the ongoing investment based on whether students are actually engaging with it.