Changes Announced Regarding Content Organization and Site Publishing Timeframes
The following e-mail was sent to all Saint Anselm College faculty and staff on April 26, 2010.
If you are like most people, you’d rather do almost anything than read a long e-mail with more information about the new Web site. We know that, but even so, we’re asking you to please read this one. It deals with important changes in how the content on the new Web site is organized and some tweaks in the publishing process. Your willingness to read these updates as we send them will minimize some confusion when we take the new site live, a time when we will be less able to answer your immediate questions or concerns.
Change in How Content is Organized on the New Web Site
One thing we heard repeatedly from our Web firm as well as other firms that had bid on our redesign project, is how the college’s current Web site architecture (site navigation) was very compartmentalized in its organization, meaning that it was organized according to how the college is set up rather than how the average visitor seeks information while navigating the site. For example, in the current site, visitors must visit a particular administrative or academic department to get information and must have some level of knowledge about what that department does in order to know where to go. While this works relatively well for our own faculty and staff, it is quite confusing to prospective students and their families who are less well versed in the vernacular of higher education.
The new Web site’s architecture (how content is organized or housed) has changed and will be driven by best practices and proven strategies in how users interface with our site. In most instances, the content is the same, but it may be located in a different place or in multiple places when the information is of interest to more than one segment of our audience. The one exception to this is academic departments, which will continue to be organized as they are on the current site, but can be found with fewer clicks. A new header of “majors,” which is the word choice used by prospective students, is given more prominence in the new site.