Challenge: The San Bernardino Community College District had embarked on a plan to modernize and expand its Crafton Hills College Campus to better serve its community. It had secured funding through a voter-approved bond measure and needed a method of communicating status reports, meeting minutes, construction updates and other information with its constituents. At the same time, it wanted to find a way to receive community comments and suggestions throughout the long project duration. Transparency and sensitivity were the core requirements for this project.

Action: The District approved our proposal to setup a website for them where they could communicate quickly and easily with its community and receive their feedback. We designed a website that was very simple to update in order to allow the District to leverage internal staff to keep the content up to date. We designed a very “shallow” site structure and utilized a very simple and clear navigation system in order to communicate a feeling of clarity and transparency in the way the District was communicating with its community. Nothing was hidden, buried or difficult to find.

Result: For the first time in the district’s history, they used a website to communicate with its community, both sharing information and receiving community feedback. The College was able to use internal resources to keep the website update and maintain its community apprised of all progress during the almost 10 –year-long implementation process of the campus master plan. The community sentiment was good because comments and suggestions were received, triaged and addressed in an orderly and timely manner.