A look beyond the sessions at CAUCE 2026
SESSION: From Audit to Action: Redesigning a Continuing Education Website for Clarity, Connection, and Conversion
PRESENTER: Mary-Eleanor Power, Director, Marketing & Communications, Open Learning & Development, Dalhousie University
What inspired you to submit this presentation, and why was this topic important for you to share with the CAUCE community?
Our website renewal project taught us lessons that extended far beyond web design. What began as an effort to modernize an outdated website quickly became a learner experience and organizational change project that challenged many of our assumptions about how continuing education learners navigate information.
I wanted to share this presentation because I know many continuing education units are facing similar challenges: balancing institutional requirements with learner expectations, managing multiple stakeholders, and making decisions about information architecture. Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of a website redesign, I wanted to share the process we followed, the mistakes we learned from, and how evidence and user testing helped us make better decisions. My hope was that attendees would leave with practical ideas they could adapt to their own institutions.
What makes this topic particularly relevant to your institution, and why did you want to share those insights with others?
At Dalhousie’s Faculty of Open Learning & Career Development, we serve a remarkably diverse range of learners. From international students in our English language programs, to university preparation students, to working professionals pursuing career development. Creating a website that could effectively support such different audiences required us to rethink how we organized information and how learners actually interact with our content.
One of the biggest lessons for us was realizing that internal organizational structures and terminology don’t necessarily align with how learners think or search. Through user testing, empathy mapping, and journey mapping, we discovered that learners navigate based on tasks and goals rather than institutional categories. Those insights fundamentally changed our approach to the project, and I felt they were highly transferable to other continuing education units that are also trying to create more intuitive, learner-centred experiences. Our Faculty’s guiding light is to empower lifelong learners through accessible learning solutions, and this project reinforced that every decision we make should begin with the learner.
How would you describe your experience presenting at the CAUCE Conference, and what stood out most to you about engaging with attendees?
Presenting at the CAUCE Conference was a wonderful experience because the audience immediately understood the complexity of the work. Continuing education professionals face many of the same challenges, so the conversations felt practical, collaborative, and honest. Rather than simply discussing websites, we were really talking about learner experience, organizational change, governance, and using evidence to guide decisions.
What stood out most was how engaged attendees were in sharing their own experiences. Many people described facing similar challenges with stakeholder alignment, content organization, and balancing institutional priorities with learner needs. It reinforced for me that, while every institution is different, the underlying challenges are remarkably similar. I left the session feeling encouraged by the openness of the CAUCE community and inspired by the willingness of colleagues to learn from one another and share both successes and lessons learned.