Building interactive experiences on a budget requires close consideration of the device cost. With many of the most affordable tablets running on Chrome, University of Kentucky opted to use the Dell 2-in-1 Chromebook for an interactive student recruitment experience. See how they leveraged Intuiface to design the experience with easy in Chrome OS.

1. Interactive App Development in Chrome OS:
University of Kentucky Revamps
Student Recruitment with Intuiface
Project
The Admissions Recruitment team at the University of Kentucky wanted to take student
recruitment to the next level by enhancing the information-sharing process. Their concept was
to replace printed handouts with 2-in-1 tablets loaded with interactive course content and
videos, enabling recruiters to showcase academic programs, college life and student
testimonials at college fairs and other off-campus events. This interactivity would better immerse
prospective students in real stories of academic excellence, creating more lasting impressions
and thus a greater interest in their school.
Content would address the most popular majors at the University of Kentucky Arts & Sciences -
including Chemistry, Mathematics, English, Economics and Psychology as well as other areas
of study that typically garner lower attention rates. Sharing information through interactive
means stood to facilitate diversification of enrollment by major and to increase overall
admissions.
Scott Bradley, Director of IT, and Scott May, Web/Application Developer, would lead the
initiative by selecting the appropriate portable, touch-screen device and programming
admissions content in an intuitively interactive way.

2. Challenges
In the University’s 2015-2022 Strategic Plan, recruitment was cited as an area for strategic
investment. However, this specific project had not yet been budgeted. To keep costs down, the
IT team needed to find affordable, interactive devices that would allow for video playback with
seamless touch interaction.
This meant the IT team, responsible for delivery of the recruitment application, would have to
select hardware before considering software - a risky proposition.
Recruiters also wanted to share information on demand, whether in the middle of a one-on-one
meeting or at an off-site event. This meant the interactive content needed to be available
whether or not an Internet connection was present. Local storage of content was thus critical.
Chrome devices were ultimately selected. Bradley said,​ “It really came down to screen size and
price. The original spec from our recruitment office called for a tablet type device with at least an
18” display which was almost impossible to come by. There was one product out there that was
a tablet device with that size display, but it was impossible to come by and looked like maybe it
was discontinued. Once we decided that wasn’t really an option, we considered the IPad pro
and looked at 2-in-1 devices. The 13” seemed to be about as large a display you could find in a
2-in-1 and those models weren’t beyond our budget. The IPad pro is pretty much the same size
12.9” but the price was what really removed it from contention. The Dell 2 in 1 Chromebook was
the right size, and at the right price for our purposes.”
But what about content creation and delivery? Development of touch interactions on Chrome
tended to require substantial coding. The Admissions Recruitment team already had an existing
suite of content prepared by the University’s video team, so there was no need for graphic
design or content curation. However, turning this raw content into a well-designed, intuitive, and
professional pitch necessitated both design freedom and a quick learning curve to minimize
delivery time.
Solution
Intuiface had been used to design a previous experience for the university.The success of that
project - 22 displays in the University’s Science Building - encouraged Bradley to explore
Intuiface’s native Chrome support.
Bradley referred to the affordability and ease of design offered by Intuiface. He said, “As one of
the easiest to use design tools we had ever experienced, we knew Intuiface would be the best
fit for this project if we could create the recruiting application for Chrome. As it turns out, we
could. The affordability of Intuiface licenses solidified this decision.”

3. Development of the interactive application proved seamless with Intuiface and required no
coding. The apps could be used offline thanks to local storage. And deployment was a breeze.
“We used Google’s Chrome Device Management on the Chromebooks. From there, adding
Intuiface Player simply required a few setting updates. It was extremely easy and required very
little time testing,” said Scott May who headed up the app development.
Results
The IT team was able to move forward with their device-first approach since Intuiface enabled
app development for Chrome OS. This kept costs down and the timeline short. The recruiting
team was provided with the interactive devices and applications they had hoped for, well before
the launch of recruiting season.
“When we met with the Recruiting team to show the initial
project, they were extremely excited about it,” said Bradley. “The prospective student comes up
and our team can show presentations on humanities, natural science, social studies and other
areas of study. Within each category, a group of majors are shown with easy navigation tools. In
each major, the user can access stories from other students who are studying in that academic
program. They can freely explore while having the support from our recruiters. Our recruitment
team can empower these upcoming scholars to choose their own path.”

4. Moving forward, the IT team plans to explore Intuiface’s analytics capability. The recruiting
team could use data-based insights to identify which majors are the most popular and how
much time a prospective student spends exploring each major. Monitoring the interactions can
assist with development of new recruitment strategies and processes, as well as more
personalized follow-up strategies.