By Autum Dierking
The University completed a year-long interdepartmental collaboration yesterday with the debut of the newly redesigned UP Web site.
Jenny Walsh, UP's Web and administrative services director, said the new design is an attempt to better serve the needs of all Web site visitors and make it more comparable to other universities' Web sites.
"We wanted to bring the Web site up to speed so that it could grow with the University," she said. "The last time it was updated was seven years ago. That's almost an eon in Web time."
The new features of the Web site take into account the changing technology from its initial creation in 2001. The old site was 800 pixels across (taking up only about half of the available screen space) and did not account for wider screen formats, whereas the new site will fill the whole screen no matter what size monitor or display you have and also shrink or expand depending on the size of the browser window so no part remains hidden, Walsh said.
The new site also includes a prominent search engine at the top right of the screen, which Walsh said reflects students' need to be able to type in exactly what they want instead of surfing through links to find it, as they were forced to do when using the old site, which had a more limited search engine.
"When I first started in Web page design," she said, "it was thought you had failed if you had to use a search engine - that your page wasn't organized correctly. It became the norm after people got comfortable with engines like Google."
Justin Grauberger and Margaret Bruya, student web services managers and two of the sites many "super users" (students, faculty and staff that contributed input to the project and worked on the site's creation), think the new search format makes the site less cluttered and easier to use.
"It's a lot easier to find the more obscure pages now," Grauberger said. "The site is way more user-friendly now than it was before."
Bruya said that one of the goals of the site's creators was to make sure everything could be found in "two clicks" of the mouse in order to make every element of the site convenient to visitors.
The site is also more aesthetically pleasing with the addition of a lighter color scheme and larger photos. The photo that runs in a strip across the center of the page is pulled from a larger album consisting of snapshots of university life and changes with each page refresh.
Also, in the lower right hand corner, there is a new element with tabs for students, parents and alumni featuring current links relevant to each group.
One of the Marketing Department's main goals in the creation of the Web site was the integration of the new university brand to make it more "visually pleasing" and create synergy between the site and other university marketing materials, said Laurie Kelley, the the director of marketing and communication and a collaborator on the project."
"I think the old site was almost too old-fashioned looking," Kelley said. "The new site is more contemporary and engaging for students. It's also a way to engage the community and draw them to the university."
Walsh agreed and said she hopes that the new site will draw more interest in the university as a whole.
"Students spend so much time on the Web that their first impression of a school is often the Web site," Walsh said. "We wanted to make it as fresh and interesting as possible so prospective students will want to learn more."
