Month: March 2009

Hi everyone, and welcome back if you’ve been away.

Thanks for your comments so far about the current web site. Over the past two weeks the design team has been discussing informational models for the new homepage, a site-wide navigation bar, and secondary pages. Right now we’re asking for your feedback on a few specific questions.

First up is a proposed list of major links for the homepage. Please take a look at the following list, as a starting point. We’d love to hear what you think—especially from the point of view of a prospective student—about whether this covers a relevant range of links to page destinations within the main Wesleyan site.

Specific questions

• would the list help you as a prospective student wanting to know more about Wesleyan?
• are there any other categories you’d like to see included? (primary bullets)
• are there any other detail items you’d like to see? (secondary bullets)
• what could we remove from the list?

Major links list

• About
  • Why Wesleyan?
  • Virtual Tour
  • Middletown Area
  • Notable Alumni
  • Visiting Wesleyan
• Academics
  • Departments/Majors
  • Courses
  • Libraries
  • Grad
  • GLSP
• Admission
  • Tuition
  • Financial Aid
  • Meet the Staff
  • Ask a Student
  • Dates and Deadlines
• Campus Life
  • Orientation
  • Athletics
  • Residential Life
  • Events/Calendar
  • Dining
• Community
  • Students
  • Parents
  • Alumni
  • Faculty
  • Staff
• Offices & Services
  • Administration
  • Office of the President
  • Registrar
  • Student Affairs
  • Technology

(Please note: some of these pages don’t have a current equivalent and would have to be created as part of the redesign process; the list is just part of the content that will be included on the new homepage, albeit a very important part; and each of the primary bullets will be links to a full range of options, where the secondary bullets are the most popular of those.)

We will follow up soon with a similar post about the site-wide navigation bar, which will contain other links, but for now we would like to focus on the main page links.

Please share you thoughts, and thanks for your time.

Adrian

Yesterday, the redesign group met with a representative group of interested students to listen to their opinions about the current homepage, the Admission site, various departmental web pages and other parts of the Wesleyan website. While the group made several points that we have already been discussing amongst ourselves, they also offered some unanticipated perspectives. All came at it from the viewpoint of a prospective/future attendee of Wesleyan, citing their own college searches and experiences with our site and other universities’ websites.

One of the topics of conversation was the importance of reliable and relevant search results. There are a lot of processes already in the works to help in this regard, and ITS has been asking for input on the search tool. If you have an idea as to how the search could be improved, a feedback form is accessible from the search page, http://www.wesleyan.edu/search.

Other topics discussed were the types of dynamic news headlines and other content that prospective students care about by highlighting student/faculty collaborations, research opportunities, and alumni achievements in their fields. We discussed their thoughts on having video on the homepage, and the need to update some of the constituency-based pages that currently are lists of links. We talked about drop-down menus and other navigation schemes, the calendar, clutter vs. airiness, the impact of the beltway feature, user-generated content sharing, and the use of large images.

Finally, we looked at some other universities’ websites that had impressed some of those present during their college searches. All in all it was a very good meeting, with a lot of sharing of ideas and we appreciate the time those present dedicated during midterm week to help share their perspective on the current Wesleyan website.

If you are a student and could not attend the meeting, what are some of your thoughts on the current website? What sorts of features or types of content do you think are most important for Wesleyan to appeal to future students? What could we add or remove from the homepage or secondary pages?

Hello,  The web design group invites you to weigh in on our current homepage/web site. As you can see, our homepage has recently undergone a minor update, which represents phase one of a larger redesign and restructuring. Thanks for taking the time to review our current web site and for offering your comments and suggestions. One question we would like to ask is, “What would perspective students and their parents find useful on the homepage”? All of your suggestions are welcome. Thanks, Steve Jacaruso