Baltimore Collegetown
Creating a unified experience with distinct spaces for different audiences while infusing the site with Baltimore’s unique energy.
Who Is Baltimore Collegetown?
Baltimore Collegetown connects students, colleges, and the community through projects that attract, engage, and retain talent while raising Baltimore’s profile as a college destination. It is also a major transportation hub, holding a transit map and schedule that connects colleges with major city amenities.
Known Issues
Scattered info for audiences
The site’s main audiences were unclear, and visitors struggled to understand its offerings based on navigation and information architecture.
How might we create a unified experience that improves student recruitment, employer connections, and community engagement across the whole network?
Audiences
Site-goers were confused with who the site was actually built for.
I reworked the information architecture to give major target demographics a unique space on the site with audience-based navigation.
Shuttle
Important shuttle information was spread throughout the site making it hard to parse.
I consolidated all of the shuttle info into one cohesive transit page and gave it prominence from the homepage and Information Architecture for easy discovery.
Information Hub
College pages were sparse and didn't give a full overview of what each institution within the Collegetown network had to offer.
I consolidated city-wide amenities into the individual college templates. This enabled highly customizable pages for each college that not only highlighted campus offerings, but also fun things to do near each campus.
Impact
This redesign unified Baltimore Collegetown’s fragmented digital experience into a clear, audience-focused ecosystem. By restructuring the entire information architecture around key user groups, centralizing transit information, and elevating college-specific content, the new experience helps students, families, and employers quickly understand what Collegetown offers and how to engage. The improved clarity directly boosted site navigation efficiency, increased shuttle resource usage, and strengthened institutional visibility. the result is a more connected, multi-audience experience.
Decrease in homepage exits due to clearer user pathways.
56%
Faster path-to-content due to audience-based IA
52%
Increase in shuttle-related page views, signaling greater trust and reliance on the transit system.
28%
Shoutouts
Sarah Yalov, Graphic Designer
Kathe Flynn, Creative Director
Andrew White, UX Mentor
Katelyn Brickey, Associate Director of Client Services
Dan Rogers, AVP of Development
Brad Walker, Associate Director of Developers
Andres Zapata, Owner