With the successful completion of the discovery and research phase of our website redesign project, New City and the SHU web content management team have moved right along into Phase 2 - Planning and Design!
Since the return from holiday break, the SHU Web Committee has been busy reviewing and approving wire frames for top level landing pages, such as Academics, Campus Life and Admissions, as well as secondary landing pages for the Colleges, departmental sites and academic programs. Once the wire frames are approved, New City will begin production of the various template designs.
Two weeks ago, New City presented three home page design concepts for the web committee to review. Committee members provided feedback on what they liked and/or disliked about each design. While 75% of the committee favored one particular design concept, there were elements from the other two designs that were preferred. With the summarized feedback and suggestions from the committee, New City presented a revised homepage design which is currently under review. The initial reaction has been very positive, and the web team is excited with the creative direction that New City is taking us!
While SHU’s new website is being designed, New City will simultaneously build a mobile friendly website using a technique called responsive design. According to Kayla Knight of Smashing Magazine, “Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market.”
In the meantime, the web content management team is in the process of creating a content inventory, and will be in touch with departments across campus to begin editing content. Our goal is to have the bulk of our web content edited and refined by the end of spring semester, to ensure a smooth and efficient content migration to our new site.
Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project! Feel free to contact us for feedback or more information at sitefeedback@sacredheart.edu
The Web Content Management Team
Nancy Boudreau
Kim Galiette
Caitlin Robles
