Tech Comm Portfolio
Overview
The University of North Texas Department of Technical Communication (UNT Tech Comm) website, techcomm.unt.edu, aims to inform current and prospective students about the field of technical communication and UNT’s corresponding programs. During Fall 2022, the UNT Tech Comm faculty entrusted me and my peer Caitlin Cao with evaluating their web content strategy. Our assignment was to recommend improvements that could help fulfill their goal of increasing enrollment in UNT Tech Comm undergraduate programs while engaging prospective graduate students.
The table below summarizes the deficiencies we identified and the corresponding recommendations we made.
Site Deficiencies | Content Strategy Recommendations |
Not reaching target audience, who is unfamiliar with technical communication | Thoroughly define technical communication, particularly on a dedicated web page titled "What is Tech Comm?" |
Low website and social media engagement | Craft an informed social media strategy and consistently execute it |
Content focused on undergraduate recruitment, while most site visitors are prospective graduate students | Incorporate prospective graduate students into site content strategy by developing content catered to their needs |
Outdated, wordy, and disorganized content throughout the site | Develop a system for regularly updating the site and write according to plain language conventions |
Caitlin and I exercised several research methods to identify these deficiencies and develop proposals for strengthening the content and structure of techcomm.unt.edu. I created a slide deck summarizing our research and recommendations, and we presented our findings to the UNT Tech Comm Department Chair and tenured faculty.
Between the date of our presentation (November 2022) and the date I authored this web page (January 2025), UNT Tech Comm has since implemented three of our four main recommendations:
Techcomm.unt.edu now includes three web pages defining technical communication, including one titled "What is Tech Comm?"
UNT Tech Comm has established a LinkedIn presence and implemented a social media strategy involving posting several times per week with undergraduate, graduate, and prospective students in mind.
Techcomm.unt.edu equally highlights undergraduate and graduate programs on its website, effectively catering to its audience of prospective graduate students.
Project Sample
To illustrate my recommendations, I crafted an example of how UNT Tech Comm could edit and restructure the web page "Why Tech Comm?" to better align with the department's intentions.
The images below display screencaps of the "Why Tech Comm?" page published on techcomm.unt.edu in 2022 (left) and my proposed content rewrite and design restructure (right).
Overall, I revised the web page to include more specific role and employment outlook information to introduce readers to the field of technical communication. More specifically, I recommended the following four changes to the page, providing rationale for each:
Retitle the page to "What is Technical Communication (“Tech Comm”)?", then make the argument for why UNT is a good place to pursue tech comm.
I retitled the page so that it directly aligned with what users were seeking. This new title also had the potential to support the site's SEO as the web page could become a recommended search result for organic searches of “what is technical communication” or “what is tech comm.”
Emphasize the versatility of a tech comm degree
"Why Tech Comm?" only listed technical writer, content developer, and user experience professional as jobs a tech comm degree prepares for, yet tech comm is so much more diverse. In my rendition, I expanded upon the list and incorporated salary data beyond
Add a table of median salaries for six tech comm positions
My user test participants commented on a lack of updated information about job prospects and potential salaries of tech comm pros. So, I added visuals and statistics to communicate up-to-date employment outlook for different tech comm careers.
Align the content design with UNT brand identity guidelines
I changed the heading fonts to Roboto Condensed to mirror the UNT identity guideline of using Open Sans Condensed for section headings that divide body copy. The off-gray Heading 1 color parallels what UNT uses on their sites, and the UNT Green Heading 2 reflects a stylistic choice I made to add on-brand accents.
Process
My peer and I practiced five research methods to collect empirical data on the users of techcomm.unt.edu and their respective needs. We aimed to assess how effectively the current web content is reaching its intended audience to determine which content is inadequately meeting user needs.
Content Audit
We each independently conducted a content audit of over 200 web pages within techcomm.unt.edu. This process included recording metadata (title, meta description, headings, links, broken links) and determining the audience, message, and call to action for each page or content chunk. Based on that information, we formulated basic recommendations for how each page could specifically better reach and communicate with its evident audience.
Stakeholder Interview
To gain further insight into the department’s goals for the website, we interviewed a former Chair of the Department of Technical Communication, Dr. Kim Sydow Campbell. Dr. Kim informed our research concerning the department staff’s current approach to the website’s content strategy and development and some obstacles they face in implementing their goals.
Google Analytics
We examined back-end data from the Google Analytics portal for techcomm.unt.edu to determine who the current site visitors are, what source referred them, and what pages they interacted with once on the site. User age, location, and language described the current audience demographic; social media referrals, external referrals, and visited webpages indicated user interests; and behavior-specific information, such as number of sessions, session length, and user path, demonstrated what users might have been seeking and whether the department has been meeting its conversion goals.
User Interviews
We conducted six think-aloud user protocols, where we asked users to take on the perspective of a high school student considering pursuing an undergraduate degree related to technical writing and observed each user research contending programs. No participants were technical communication students.
SEO Analysis
To inspect the site’s search engine optimization (SEO), we conducted context inquiries to determine what keywords generated search results with web pages within techcomm.unt.edu and what keywords warranted websites that linked to the tech comm site.
Results
Upon conducting our research studies and evaluating the efficacy of the UNT Tech Comm website, we distilled our findings into four areas of deficiency. Use the dropdown arrows to read detailed reporting of our results.
Defining Technical Communication
During the user tests, we observed that upon receiving the prompt, users’ first reaction to opening techcomm.unt.edu was to ask what technical communication is. The web content at the time was written for an audience already familiar with technical communication, inhibiting unfamiliar readers from connecting with the content. The web page “Why Tech Comm?” was intended to educate users on the value of a tech comm degree. However, it neglected to define the profession and instead capitalized on employment outlook statistics. Students in our user tests expressed it would be difficult to decide whether they wanted to pursue a degree in technical communication if they didn’t know what technical communication was.
Catering to Multiple Audiences
Google Analytics revealed that the largest demographic of users was U.S. residents aged 25–30—most of whom navigated to the pages on graduate programs and scholarships. Although the UNT Technical Communication Graduate Studies LinkedIn effectively guided grad students to the tech comm site, the only web page dedicated to graduate enrollment was “Master’s Degree: MA,” offering little content for this audience. Both undergraduate and graduate students seek financial and career-related information, almost all of such content on the site was specific to undergraduate students.
Outdated Content
Through the content audits, we uncovered outdated news articles, syllabi, scholarship forms, and broken links. When we mentioned this to Dr. Kim during the stakeholder interview, she remarked that it’s “unfortunately common,” as there is no schedule, delegation, or budget within the tech comm department for updating content.
Similarly, external links became an evident issue when some employment outlook statistics cited on “Why Tech Comm?” reported higher metrics than the external web pages they linked to. Additionally, internal information (such as the Tech Lab hours) was also outdated, offering unreliable assistance to students. Such outdated references can diminish users’ credibility in a source, leading fewer tech comm students to engage with the tech comm site.
Social Media Presence
Lastly, UNT Tech Comm's social media presence was scarce. Their most prevalent presence was on LinkedIn, through their profile "UNT Tech Comm Graduate Studies." UNT Tech Comm used this platform to promote its graduate program offerings, yet techcomm.unt.edu lacked informative content for graduate students. Additionally, during the content audit, I discovered that the Contact Us page on techcomm.unt.edu had a link to an inactive LinkedIn page from before the tech comm department split from English.
UNT Tech Comm’s other social media profiles included Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, but based on their low engagement metrics, I deduced that UNT Tech Comm was not executing a social media strategy. Specifically, UNT Tech Comm’s Twitter profile (@UNT_TECM) had been inactive since 2020 and had not since contributed to the traffic of techcomm.unt.edu. Additionally, UNT Tech Comm’s Facebook page had 1,300 followers, but only two posts had been made in 2022, receiving a total of four interactions. Finally, UNT Tech Comm’s Instagram profile (@unttechcomm) had marginally increased in engagement from 2021 to 2022, from an average of four likes per post to nine likes per post.
Takeaways
Caitlin and I recommended a total of ten actions the UNT Tech Comm department could take to establish and reform its web content strategy. These recommendations are listed below, each corresponding with the deficiency they help resolve.
Defining Technical Communication
Repurpose and rewrite the “Why Tech Comm?” web page.
To resolve the issue of students not learning of UNT Tech Comm’s programs, we recommended transforming the “Why Tech Comm” page into one titled “What is Technical Communication?”.
This page should explicitly define technical communication, the career paths associated, and its employment outlook.
Not only would this minimize confusion for prospective students, but the page would also serve as a significant opportunity to house relevant keywords like technical writer, UX design, proposal writing, and more to improve the SEO of the site as a whole.
Additionally, we recommended adding a call-to-action button on the landing page of techcomm.unt.edu that reads “What is Tech Comm?” to immediately catch the eye of unfamiliar users and lead them to this informative page.
2Another SEO recommendation we have is retitling the “Bachelor’s Degrees: BA & BS” page to “Bachelor’s Degrees: BA & BS in Professional and Technical Communication.” From a search-results perspective, “Bachelor’s Degrees: BA & BS” doesn’t inform a user what degrees the page describes, beyond them being undergraduate. Our proposed title would resolve that and also clearly communicate to prospective students viewing the site what degree they would be earning.
Catering to Multiple Audiences
Create content to meet the needs of the majority of the website visitors (i.e., prospective graduate students).
In its original form, techcomm.unt.edu accurately reflected that prospective undergraduate students were the primary audience the department was hoping to reach. However, as described in the Results section, most of the website’s traffic was actually generated by prospective graduate students.
Therefore, we suggested that UNT Tech Comm further develop and distinguish resource page(s) dedicated to their graduate students and programs.
A simple example could be to retitle “Master’s Degree: MA” to “Graduate Degree: MA in Professional and Technical Communication," while a more intensive effort would be to publish a graduate-specific alumni testimonial video or article.
Another solution could be to revise pages like “Why Tech Comm?” to include information relevant to the graduate program students, such as a table of starting salaries for tech comm professionals with graduate degrees.
Replace external links with supplemental content.
The fewer external links, the better; external links navigate users away from the site, and external content can change or become void over time.
Where external links are currently used, we recommended instead summarizing the referenced content and citing the links as sources.
This change would support the credibility of the tech comm site and secure user retention.
Outdated Content
Develop a system of regularly creating and updating content, whether that be through staff, student, or volunteer positions.
Dr. Kim reported that such a system does not exist within the department but would be critical to the site’s success.
Systematically creating, updating, and reviewing content would ensure routine checks for outdated information and create more unity in voice across the site.
Follow plain language guidelines or similarly defined technical writing conventions.
Since the participants in our think-aloud user research glazed over the text-heavy pages, we believe that writing with more clarity and concision would more effectively communicate messages to users.
Moreover, as UNT tech comm coursework teaches plain language writing, following such conventions would better reflect what the program teaches.
Additionally, with several authors writing site content over the past few years (as Dr. Kim said), some pages are written with more elevated language than others.
Following a style guide would allow for a more consistent voice across pages, regardless of how many authors contribute.
Encourage student contributions.
Implementing a management system presents opportunities for increasing student involvement by encouraging students to contribute to the website.
For example, students could write news stories, report on recent happenings, or showcase their portfolios.
Such active involvement would consequently produce a more frequently updated site—given that the department has the personnel to edit and publish student contributions.
Organize content effectively and consistently.
While bodies of text can be informational, their presentation detracts from the site’s readability.
A solution for text-heavy pages like “Student Employment Opportunities” and “Scholarships” could be to chunk the information with headings or shorten pages with a side panel navigation system (similar to the existing Academic Programs pages).
Social Media Presence
Create an undergraduate LinkedIn page, or expand the existing page to encompass all of UNT Tech Comm.
According to our Google Analytics data, Dr. Erin Friess’s UNT Tech Comm Graduate Studies LinkedIn page is one of the primary contributors to the tech comm site traffic—and it has the highest post engagement rate of the department’s social pages (approximately 10%).
An undergraduate LinkedIn page would have the potential to reach and engage current students, current faculty, alumni, prospective students, and even prospective faculty.
For example, posts could advertise undergraduate courses or programs and directly channel student inquiries or enrollment.
Running the undergraduate LinkedIn page could be delegated to the tech comm faculty member directing outreach, the Department Chair, or even a student employee.
Nonetheless, like other forms of content strategy, social media posting must always be approached with an audience, message, and goal in mind.
Create a UNT tech comm subreddit.
Google Analytics demonstrated that Reddit is the number-one social media platform directing traffic to techcomm.unt.edu. However, we don’t know which subreddit this activity is sourced from, so we might not be able to figure out what the common interest or goal is that calls these users to the site.
Regardless, UNT Tech Comm may want to consider starting a subreddit because of how effective Reddit has been in bringing in users.
This subreddit could be hosted by staff or (trustworthy) students, but it could function as a community for prospective, current, and former majors to ask about the programs or offer career advice.
Evaluate and re-define social media strategies.
Developing a comprehensive social media strategy for the department was beyond the scope of our project, but we recommended UNT Tech Comm begin by defining a goal and purpose for each social profile and deactivating profiles they no longer have a strategy for.
For example, if UNT Tech Comm decides to implement with our proposals of creating an undergraduate-focused LinkedIn and/or hosting a subreddit community, we recommend they delete their Twitter to centralize their following and posting.
Additionally, as budget and staff within the department are limited, we encourage UNT Tech Comm to allocate resources toward what has potential to offer the most value to the department in the shortest amount of time.
Conclusion
The report Caitlin and I composed, the slide deck we presented, and this web page I've authored detail our methods, findings, and recommendations from our comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy of UNT Tech Comm’s content strategy for techcomm.unt.edu.
The original Conclusion I wrote for our 2022 report said, "Should our recommendations be implemented, we hope they help UNT Tech Comm’s website reflect the excellence of the program and better meet the needs of prospective and current undergraduate and graduate majors. Moreover, we hope our social media insights contribute to the department’s ultimate goal of increasing enrollment in the undergraduate tech comm program. We appreciate the opportunity to channel our technical communication skills toward a product for an organization with personal significance to us. We are happy to offer further insight on our recommendations, should the department consider implementing them."
In a conversation with the UNT Tech Comm Department Chair in 2024, I learned that UNT Tech Comm truly took our research and recommendations into consideration and has since implemented several of our strategies. Our stakeholder interview revealed that a lack of financial resources is the root of most of the issues with the department's site;