2U Appoints Big Bite

2U, the education technology company, has chosen Big Bite as its technology partner to migrate a collection of over 80 sites to the WordPress block editor to support its growth plans.

Based in the US, the company partners with nonprofit Colleges and Universities to offer online degree programs and in-person bootcamps. The team at 2U manage an extensive collection of websites and microsites on behalf of its partners, and had previously found even small tasks such as content changes to be long and drawn out. 

In early 2020, we began our partnership with the team at 2U following a trial period with WordPress VIP, and we began a phase of discovery to uncover the most effective strategy and explore 2U’s internal toolkit. This allowed us to identify current pain points and potential areas of improvement, and ultimately propose a long term solution which would achieve the company’s goals.

We identified an initial suite of Gutenberg blocks, which would kickstart the development of a 2U WordPress theme, starting with an MVP site. From the MVP site launch, any work undertaken will contribute back to the core WordPress theme, which means that every new block, component or piece of newly developed functionality would be able to be utilised by any website using the centralised theme. 

The new theme will include an extensive global settings panel, allowing the non technical teams at 2U to change brand assets, including colours, logos and page layout templates, following the brand guidelines of each of the company’s partners. It will also include new enhanced features and workflows – working towards the primary goal of giving the team the freedom and flexibility to create and launch responsive page layouts and websites efficiently. 

We are just about to reach the halfway point in the project and are really proud of the progress that we have made so far. This has helped by practising a collaborative approach with the internal teams and stakeholders at 2U and providing access to the environment early on in the development phase, so that we can constantly work with the client to ensure the end goal is delivered to the highest standards possible.