Great to see you at SEMM 2026

Thanks for joining our talk! We hope you found our insights on program pages helpful. Dive deeper with our full presentation and actionable toolkit to see how small improvements can make a big difference for students.

 

 

 

 

 

Enhance your program pages

Use our toolkit to assess your school’s program pages and pinpoint opportunities to make them clearer, faster, and more student-friendly.

Clearing the Path: Reducing Website Barriers to Program Exploration

Download our presentation slides here

Some key highlights from our presentation include:

  • Program pages aren’t for awareness — they’re for decision-making. A student already knows who you are. We’re focused on the middle stage: deep evaluation and research. Students are asking, “Is this program right for me?”
  • Focus on what you can control. Students are motivated and looking to answer questions about cost, timing, courses, etc. Your goal is clarity. Are you making it easier or harder for them to find these answers?
  • Cater to your audiences in ways that work for them. Local vs. international, graduate vs. undergraduate — students come with different goals. Give them flexible ways to search and browse programs. Clearly answer their questions and keep the page focused on the programs; this isn’t the space to market the whole university.
  • Identify who you’re trying to recruit. Get real clarity on exactly who you’re recruiting. Understand who decides internally, what role internal individuals and teams play, and how to align each team’s needs and expectations.
  • Bring program information into one place and make program pages the decision hub. Fragmentation creates friction and your job is to protect the evaluation experience. They should include everything a student needs to make a decision — career opportunities, what they’ll learn, courses, requirements, deadlines, costs and application steps.

Even if you’ve done everything right building your centralized hub, here are the 5 most common places we see issues that you should consider:

  1. Walls and walls of text. These are very hard to scan. Your content needs hierarchy. Students are working through a lot of questions — make it easy for them.
  2. Institutional “marketing” over decision-making information. Program pages are not the time or place to sell your institution.
  3. Split content across subpages, hidden pages, etc. Yes it’s a lot of information on one page, but we consistently see organizations try to “reduce overwhelm” by splitting content into subpages, hidden pages, etc. This makes it harder for students.
  4. Remember: you are not the user. Our motivations as an organization are very different to the person deciding to attend our institution. Actual user research is a vital part of the process, and technology consultation can show you where the gaps exist.
  5. Consider how AI is extracting information. Students are using AI tools to research programs. You should know how your information is being surfaced through them. We can help with that.

Trusted Technology Consultants for Post-Secondary Solutions

We get it. You need to reach more prospective students, support current students, and still address the needs of internal staff, parents, and the overall community. It’s a lot! We are here to help. Paper Leaf has worked with multiple post-secondary institutions to deliver robust strategies backed by user-centric research and decision-making to deliver the results that matter.

Our technology consulting services encompass advisory and guidance on: technology strategy, digital product strategy, user experience (UX), accessibility requirements, design systems, product management, operational efficiency, and more.

About Paper Leaf

Design-founded and industry-recognized, Paper Leaf is a team of 32 web and mobile app experts. Our in-house, cross-functional teams work alongside our clients in an agile manner to continuously consult on, discover, deliver, and support their digital products.

You can learn more about our service offering’s below or here.

 

 

 

 

 

Post-Secondary Experience

Technology Consulting Websites

SAIT consultation and enhancements

Transforming the student experience at SAIT: A user-centric approach

Result: 500% Increase in “Apply now” clicks

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Technology Consulting WordPress

UBC VPFO

Optimizing UBC’s Finance and Operations with a Digital Ecosystem Strategy

Result: Goal of a more manageable ecosystem

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Websites WordPress

Study in Ontario

A Centralized Website for Post-Secondary Success in Ontario

Result: 120k+ user visits during the recruitment period

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Websites Web Applications Laravel

Pathways to Teach Website and Portal

A digital solution to support teachers applying for certification in Canada

Result: 4K+ Accounts Created

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Our Services

Technology Consulting

With a people-first, unique combination of business brains and technology expertise, we help set the stage for scale while saving you time and money.

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Application Discovery

Every digital product starts with an Application Discovery Phase, to ensure everyone is on the same page and we understand how to deliver maximum value.

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Websites

We have a long history of executing on large websites with a level of technical complexity that few firms can deliver. Often on WordPress – but not always – we are a web development company who builds in an agile manner and ensure user-friendliness for both end users and content managers alike.

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Web Applications

Custom software can transform organizations, bolstering efficiency and the bottom line. We build end-to-end custom web applications to do just that, usually on a Laravel/React stack.

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Mobile Applications

Whether it's a new build, improvements to an existing platform, or a complete rebuild of legacy software, we launch beautiful, custom mobile apps on both iOS & Android platforms.

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Managed Hosting & Ongoing Support

Launch is just the start. We're a Digital Ocean partner, offering robust and mature managed hosting services in Canada – including maintenance and support for your application once it goes live.

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AI & Emerging Technologies

We help companies understand, optimize, and implement technology solutions that deliver real impact — from AI discovery to operational efficiency.

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