Are you developing a new campus app or revamping one that has lost its luster? If built and managed effectively, your app should drive downloads and maintain high user engagement and retention rates. The process requires a dedicated team, a comprehensive project plan, launch strategy, and continued analysis and improvements.
We spoke with digital leaders from higher education institutions to learn what steps they felt were essential to develop and launch a campus app successfully. They shared these five elements from their playbooks.
Step 1: Invest in Team Building Early On
Preparing to develop a campus app involves extensive project planning and coordination of the necessary teams, resources, and actions.
Ideas to integrate into your student app project plan:
- Line up robust developer skill sets and senior-level integration roles in the initial stage.
- Dedicate a solid development team for the duration of your app’s life.
- Confirm support with aligned resources once the app has launched.
- Stay active through subsequent phases to keep content fresh and dynamic.
“It would’ve been really nice to have a more solid team working on [our app]…at the beginning to know exactly who was moving forward with the project and what their roles are,” said Ryan Seilhamer, Penn State Go Product Owner. “Because once the app got out, and it was popular…then you’re kind of backtracking going…how are we going to support it? The one good thing was using the Modo platform… [it was] easy enough to use even without the development help.”
Step 2: Prioritize App Functionality
To quickly engage students and streamline their experience, you should develop the functionality they want most. A scalable approach allows your team to start small but get something in students’ hands that brings value and creates a feedback loop.
Next steps to prioritize campus app functionality:
- Determine ten items for rollout, knowing you’ll eventually have many more to build out. Some popular time-saving services include bus schedules, dining hall menus, campus maps, and advisor appointment scheduling.
- Start with a single persona with a small subset of functions, adding personas in a phased approach.
- Design a roadmap for iterations of build-out to include relevant content, two-way communication, and layers of functionality for types of usage, campus location, hybrid, remote learning, etc.
- Provide ways for users to generate buzz around the app’s early functionality.
“One of the things I think we’re really glad we did was prioritize the modules…structured as a phased event where we’re going live with a subset of functionality that is the quickest, easiest, most mission-critical…most demanded functions from the students,” explained Chad Stiller, AVP, IT at Northern Arizona University (NAU). “You start to really think and interact with them on what that experience looks like? What are the tools most useful to them? And then you build those layers out and keep it fresh and dynamic.”
When building the app, it’s vital to identify what is most important to the user, whether that includes students, faculty, graduate students, alums, or prospective students. Then build your app to address the challenges those audiences face — on and off campus.
Step 3: Employ a Phased Development Approach
A phased roll-out helps prepare your team for the next steps and ensures you are comfortable with the technology. A comprehensive project plan should outline phases with consideration for system integrations, infrastructure teams, development teams, and vendors, as well as collaboration and communication requirements for each stage of the project.
“…[our] signature project was to completely replace our physical student ID with the digital wallet tied into the mobile iOS using Modo as the interface,” explained Stiller. “When we first rolled it out, it was just for incoming freshmen on iOS to make sure that everything was going to work the way we wanted. We’ve now rolled it out on both Android and iOS to all students, faculty, and staff… [a] huge challenge from all the different partners involved. We had Modo, of course, and their engineers were helping us out with this.”
The NAUgo app digital ID required significant custom development with third-party data integration and physical campus upgrades. The initial phase of implementation and release to first-year students on Apple iOS took nine to twelve months. Within the subsequent two semesters, all students were up and running. Finally, the digital card was made available to faculty and staff.
Step 4: Involve Your Users in the Process
While school initiatives may drive some of the app’s content, ultimately, it should appeal to the end user. If you are using a no-code / low-code app-building platform like Modo Campus, you can engage students and departments in the app development process, regardless of their technical skills. You can also tap them to create and deploy content.
Tips for user involvement in the development process:
- Engage students in the initial design and feature plan. You could tap an existing on-campus group, such as a student leadership board, or create a committee to represent different interest groups across campus.
- Assemble students, faculty, and department staff to help curate content and support ongoing development.
- Meet with students regularly to guide implementations and iterations, learning what works for them and what they want to see.
- Use in-app surveys and polls for quick feedback on new features.
- With Modo Campus, you can access real-time analytics for insight into the features and services that matter most to app users. Changes in feature usage can inform where to optimize and evolve your app.
“From the beginning, when we looked at the Penn State app…we started getting the designs in front of students immediately…the designs you see today are designs that the students selected,” said Seilhamer.
The NAUgo app, which won a 2022 Appademy Award for Best New Student Orientation and Most Innovative app, is an integral part of student life thanks to student input on content and design.
“The entire life of the app is driven by students, from ideas for what to include, to the content, to the design, development, and testing,” shared Patricia Allenbaugh, senior user experience analyst at NAU. “This level of involvement ensures our app meets the needs of our students throughout their NAU journey. The Modo platform has helped us integrate more features, such as a digital student ID and class schedules, in response to student feedback.”
Step 5: Train App Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
A campus app’s successful rollout and sustainability depend on consistent people power. Therefore, integrate select students, faculty, staff, and Modo team members as SMEs into your project plan. SMEs should be knowledgeable in their areas of the app’s functionality, content, and intended user experience.
Ideas to support app introduction and usability:
- Employ app SMEs across campus to assist student use.
- Train SMEs on sharing meaningful messages with campus app users.
- Provide SMEs with a simple system for user feedback collection and integration into future iterations.
- Keep a list of “coming soon” features based on suggestions and feedback to let users know you’re listening.
A launch strategy that incorporates communication and ongoing support from SMEs can improve your app’s chances of success. They can help determine what content and functionality are meaningful to students to encourage continued app use.
Listen to the complete panel discussion in our on-demand webinar, How to Keep Your Students Engaged With a Digital Experience App.Are you developing a new student app for your school? See why leading institutions use the Modo Campus app platform to build their campus apps. Request a demo.