Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Blueprints, Architecture and Features Reviewed

It may feel like summertime, but there’s no vacation break for those of us working on the UNC Asheville Web site redesign.

The university Web Redesign Advisory Team reviewed and gave significant input on the new site’s proposed “Blueprint” on Thursday , June 11, presented by Capstrat, the agency assisting us on the project.

Some of the information we reviewed included the site’s overarching goals:

• To reflect the culture of UNC Asheville
• To demonstrate our university’s mission through evidence
• To build a strong foundation on which to grow the site

To achieve those goals we want to show (and not just "tell") the distinguishing characteristics of our university, focusing on the events that are occurring on the campus, illustrating the success of our students, faculty and alumni, and giving examples of the meaning a quality liberal arts education.

The design, content and architecture of the Web site must take all of those things into consideration.

Several new features and functionality that we would like to build into the new site design were proposed, including interactive virtual tours of the campus, video interviews with students, a “Day in the Life” student blog, and a “Perspectives” feature that would allow faculty, staff and students to participate in online discussions of world events or issues being studied in various classes. Some Web Team members observed that these new features would be time intensive to produce, but would certainly set a new standard for our Web presence. We are excited about plans to work with faculty and students in Multimedia Arts and Sciences in the fall to produce a virtual campus tour and other features. More on that later.

The Information Architecture (IA) of the new site also was discussed, and Web Team members gave good suggestions for the main homepage links and sublinks. A revised sitemap is being studied and an online “tree test” (survey) is being conducted among faculty, staff, students, alumni and other groups to help us make sure the site is easy to navigate.

Please help us by taking part in this “tree test”. It only takes a few minutes. You can find the survey online here:
http://deliver.capstrat.com/userexperience/unc-asheville/

We’re also continuing to “build a strong foundation” for the Web site in the future by securing a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is software that creates and manages Web pages including editing and distribution of content within a Web site. It also allows much greater consistency in design throughout a Web site. More information about the chosen CMS, called Drupal, will be shared with the campus in the coming months, including which individual sites will be migrated into the CMS and what kind of training will be offered.

We continue to be on schedule for the next major steps forward - - Content Creation and Visual Design - - beginning in July.

Comments are welcome!