John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Wanting to refresh its existing site to better align with the College’s priorities and to reflect its dynamic presence, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, engaged Lounge Lizard to complete a full website redesign and development project. The new website would be part of the larger CUNY system but essentially function as a standalone site where the new, refreshed main pages seamlessly integrate with the existing 4K+ pages that need to be maintained.

The College hoped to launch a new brand-specific site that would convey its current vision and position the site to attract its primary audiences, e.g., prospective students, parents, media, community and government leaders, and donors.

With the new site, the College wanted a streamlined home page with increased user engagement, providing easier access and more precise navigation for users seeking information or wishing to enroll. They also wanted a clean site with engaging visuals and movement representing their dynamic culture.

It was important to continue utilizing Drupal as their content management system to integrate their existing resources and allow a seamless transition for their IT team while negating additional training.

Working with the College’s Website Redesign Team, Lounge Lizard’s Brandtenders designed an overall site map and design aesthetic that modernized John Jay’s brand and provided a site with far easier access and straightforward navigation.

It was important that the flow included easy access for students and parents to find information about classes, academic requirements, and student life while also leading those interested in supporting the College directly to their donations page.

The Home Page opens with a dynamic video in the Hero Section showcasing the diverse student and faculty population, with New York City as a backdrop. The opening video creates a sense of energy and leads visitors further down the page. Utilizing a ‘Hamburger’ style menu, the main pages are easily accessible, and there is a strong link structure built throughout the entire site.

With over 4,500 existing site pages, including forms for registration, financial assistance, grant approvals, and linked sites for research centers and institutes within the College, the new main pages needed to be designed to work seamlessly with the other pages. Lounge Lizard’s development team successfully upgraded Drupal 7 to 9, which required working collaboratively with their in-house web team to help migrate all customized modules and content groups to the new site and ensure integration within the CUNY website system.

The new website was thoroughly tested and launched, providing John Jay College of Criminal Justice with a new platform for its continuing mission to educate fierce advocates for justice. The site is performing beyond expectations and has experienced phenomenal growth in organic monthly traffic, averaging over 70K.