From Complicated to Clear: Flagler College’s Migration to Drupal 10

Flagler College is a private liberal arts college in St. Augustine, Florida. Ranked third in Regional Colleges South by US News, the institution prides itself on unique undergraduate programs such as Coastal Environmental Sciences or Deaf Education. 

As the traditional college-age population faces a 13% decline in the next 15 years, reinventing the higher education wheel is a priority for many schools. While some have to tighten their belts, others choose to innovate and attract students with unconventional degrees. 

Flagler is in the latter camp. However, its website fell short of meeting these expectations. Users, including prospective students, parents, and staff faced difficulties navigating the site and finding key information, such as program details or financial aid. The outdated design and slower page load speeds also contributed to a less-than-ideal user experience.

Flagler College partnered with Kanopi Studios to redesign and rebuild its website in Drupal 10 on the Pantheon platform. This transition aimed to address the college’s immediate needs while providing a scalable foundation for future growth.

Our favorite part about the new site is how amazing it looks on mobile, and how fast the experience is. Our college is in Florida - we live and breathe sunshine and the ocean. You can now truly get a feel for it just by visiting flagler.edu.” 

– Holly Hill, Senior Director of Marketing at Flagler College

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Proprietary CMS to Drupal to improve content management

Flagler.edu was built with a closed-source CMS called Terminal Four, which had a steep learning curve and a few other limitations for the college marketing team.

We originally began working with Flagler on strategy and creative goals. But in the process, we uncovered the overall content management experience on Terminal Four was pretty rigid. The marketing team lacked overall control and eventually decided to switch to Drupal." 

– Tim Tufts, Director of Project Success at Kanopi 

The migration to Drupal 10 was a mix of automated and manual efforts, ensuring accuracy and consistency. The new platform offered the marketing team customizable components to create landing pages, manage layouts and update content with ease. Each piece of content was tagged and categorized to align with specific goals and metrics, providing actionable insights for continued optimization.

Student-specific redesign to improve engagement

With the Drupal foundation in place, it was time to update the content strategy. ​​Kanopi began with extensive research, including user testing, stakeholder surveys, heat mapping and a content audit. 

The research showed that users would primarily land on the homepage, news and programs. However, diving deeper into Directory, Academics or About Flagler would leave many unsatisfied and lead to a bounce rate of 62% and higher. 

The Kanopi team’s efforts identified key areas for improvement, such as simplifying navigation and improving the user experience on high-traffic pages like Degrees and Programs. 

“Heat mapping on Degrees and Programs pages showed poor scroll depth, while click data indicated people were missing key calls to action. Further, qualitative user research indicated that site visitors found content-heavy program pages difficult to navigate,” said Natalie Yelton, Content Strategist at Kanopi.

Mobile users account for 59% of site traffic, most of which comes from organic and direct search. Female users represent the majority of users across all devices. 

“Thanks to this data, we began designing with a new student persona in mind. We adopted ‘scrolly-telling,’ a visual concept that helps the younger generation digest information in the way they like – with animations, color changes and other visual cues. Students appreciated the change,” said Holly Hill, Senior Director of Marketing at Flagler College.

Results brought by the bold and youthful look

The new Flagler College website was launched with a fresh design and improved usability. Kanopi reworked 50+ content pages, crafting accessible, readable and SEO-optimized copy using inclusive language and words. Navigation was simplified, making it easier for users to find information. The revamped "Degrees and Programs" page offered a more engaging experience with search and filtering features. 

Pageviews went up by 43.5% compared year over year. 

Flagler’s marketing team embraced the new vision of their content strategy with its updated voice, tone and brand. They also found an easier and more flexible content editing experience on Drupal.”

 – Natalie Yelton, Content Strategist at Kanopi

To ensure long-term success, Kanopi provided training for Flagler’s developer and marketing team. The developer received guidance on Drupal workflows, while the marketing team learned how to manage content effectively. This collaborative approach empowered Flagler’s teams to maintain and evolve their new website with confidence.