Welcome to the Wesleyan Web site redesign discussion blog. University Communications and The New Media Lab have joined forces to upgrade the Wesleyan University Web experience and we need your help. Voice your opinions on what you like and don’t like and what you would rather see more or less of. We will keep this blog up-to-date with our progress and ask for your suggestions. Your comments will help guide our process.
Our goal is to make this process transparent so that we may incorporate your ideas into this project and ultimately make the best Web site possible. While we are doing extensive research, please feel free to post content and functionality suggestions, accessibility recommendations, other Web sites for us to look at, elements and tools from other sites, etc.
The more ideas and suggestions we have from the Wesleyan Community, the more this Web site will become about the Wesleyan experience.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Not a huge issue, but on the current homey, everytime you go to “Search,” you are blocked by an annoying Quick Links menu. If you scroll your mouse anywhere close to that Quick Links menu, it pops up by itself and blocks the other menu items. I think “Quick Links” should be clickable, and then you scroll down to the item you want. I’m guessing that the “search” feature on the wesleyan homepage is used pretty frequently. I know I use it quite a bit to find a certain department or person. But everytime I go to search, I get annoyed that the box is blocked. Thank you for taking my suggestion into consideration.
At the risk of seeming shallow and materialistic, I’d love to see an on-line store for Wesleyan t-shirts, hats and all the usual (hopefully strictly sustainable) gear that colleges sell. I live and Los Angeles and don’t get to the East Coast much, and unfortunately have not been to the campus in many years – so I really don’t have the opportunity to pick this stuff up.
Unless I am mistaken, I couln’t find anything like this on this website.
I actually met an alumnus in Santa Monica last year when I saw him wearing a Wes cap – and that’s a pretty rare sighting in LA even with the large numbers of students who have been involved in Wesleyan’s covert take over of the film industry (well almost).
At any rate – I also see this as a great way to generate tens of thousands of dollars a year for the school while doing some very good PR around the country and world facilitated by those folks wearing this timeless, yet stylish red and black gear.
I am serious about the sustainable theme too, everything should be sustainablly sourced, organic cotton etc. – we owe that to future generations of Wesleyan students and this beautiful planet we live on.
Thanks for the chance to give some input, good luck for a great new site.
Please redo the “History” section, the first that appears, to reflect that Wesleyan is non-denominational (as opposed to Methodist). Wikipedia has a nice presentation which you may want to model: “Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded by Methodist leaders and prominent residents of Middletown, the now secular university was the first institution to be named after John Wesley, the Protestant theologian who was the founder of Methodism. There are about twenty other unrelated colleges and universities subsequently named after Wesley.
Wesleyan is one of the nation’s most highly ranked colleges.[2] Wesleyan occupies a position in American higher education between the large research universities and the smaller liberal arts institutions. The University emphasizes undergraduate instruction, but also supports and funds graduate research in many academic disciplines. Wesleyan, along with Amherst and Williams Colleges, constitute the historic “Little Three” colleges. Wesleyan also is a member of the Twelve-College Exchange Program which includes Amherst, Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wheaton, and Williams.”
There should be more places to have interactive content. Class pages. Ways to post links. The feedback here is great but integrate that into all of management.