U. ready to show off new website

Student life takes center stage on the University’s new website, which will launch this month after an extensive redesign that began last summer.

Some of the changes include student contributions, such as videos portraying student life, a layout emphasizing accessibility and a more user-friendly search function.

The website’s last update occurred in 2005. Robinson-Brown said that it is standard for most institutions to consider redesigning their websites every three years. But, she added, “the driving factor [for redesign] was our desire to present a stronger visual message.”

The Office of Communications and OIT collaborated on the new website after collecting input from students, faculty, staff and visitors via the online feedback tool.

The biggest change visitors will notice is the new multimedia feature. The new website allows visitors to choose among different videos profiling student activity on campus and customize their video with closed captioning or full-screen view. Such emphasis on student work is often missing from most peer institutions’ websites, Robinson-Brown said.

The new design will also allow students to submit their own work to the Office of Communications to be considered for inclusion on the homepage.

David Hopkins, manager of OIT’s New Media Center, said that in an age when young people are constantly sharing their work online through outlets such as youtube.com, the new website will provide a natural vehicle for continuing this trend.

“I like the video portion. It’s almost like a mini Princeton YouTube video,” Ying Fan ’11 said as she viewed the website’s preview page.

“We’re really proud to be breaking ground and showcasing student work to the world right through the homepage,” Robinson-Brown said.

Those who worked on the new website responded to the feedback they had received. “Everything we’ve learned the last three years, we’ve incorporated into this design,” Robinson-Brown said.

The most commonly voiced concerns were about accessibility. One important change that came about from widespread input is a “Community Resources” section of the homepage that makes features such as a financial aid estimator, a useful tool for prospective applicants who visit the website, easier to find.

Lucia Diaz ’10 said that the new website “is easier to navigate” and that she will visit it more often, particularly when she is searching for important information. “I will more likely go to it than just try to ask a friend if they know,” she said. “It seems much faster and better laid out.”

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Calendars such as those for featured lectures and events, academic deadlines and art exhibitions will be grouped in a single location. The search function will also be more user-friendly. Typing in the name of a faculty member or student will now turn up directory information and results from University websites simultaneously.

By providing site visitors with an easy way of discovering the goings-on at the University as well as simplifying common tools, the website’s creators hope the changes will make the website more popular.

“Once you realize that [the website] is dynamic and interesting, you might want to visit a lot, and we hope that that will happen for all of our audiences,” Robinson-Brown said.

Certain aspects of the website will remain unchanged. For one thing, it will continue to include the abundance of University news that appears on the current website.

And, of course, she added, the website “is still pretty black and orange.”