Gonzaga Housing Web Developer Consultant
By Xavier Collantes
Couch Surfing
During the summer after my graduation, I was searching for a job. Instead of
going back home to my parents, I decided I needed to stay active on my own. My
situation felt like a rock and a hard place.
But I looked around campus and saw 5,000 rooms of opportunity.
Surrounded by Housing
I needed a place to stay. Walking around campus, I noticed how thousands of dorm
rooms were empty.
Then an idea struck me!
I went to the Gonzaga Housing Department, notorious at the time for having a
difficult-to-navigate website. Since students were required to live on campus
for the first two years, every student at Gonzaga used the Housing website at
least once. I knew I could make a difference.
My proposal to the manager of the Housing Department was to redesign the
Department's website in exchange for a dorm room. The Director of the
Department liked the idea and approved me as a temporary employee with a minimum
wage salary and a rent-free apartment for the summer!
First Consulting Gig
The goal was fairly open-ended and straightforward: to improve the ability of students to get information from the Housing Department's website.
To measure the project's success, I asked, "If the website isn't helpful, where
do students turn for information?" So, I spoke to the front desk secretary at
the Department with questions like:
- "How many calls do you receive from students each day?"
- "What are the top three questions you get?"
- "What actions take the most time in your work?"
- "What do you dislike most about your job, and what do you wish was better?"
The secretary's answers were a gold mine. She gave me the top pieces of
information students were looking for and the biggest areas of impact my project
could make. After all, when a student is frustrated with the website, they will
naturally call to talk to a human - just as I did during my time as a student.
Related Articles
Related by topics:
webdev
thingsIBuilt
frontend
consulting