Why are we redesigning the homepage?
It’s a great opportunity to tell the evolving NC State story. The North Carolina State University homepage www.ncsu.edu averages some 80,000 unique visits each day and is the single-largest opportunity NC State has to communicate with a varied audience of current faculty, staff, and students, prospective students and their parents, alumni and friends, corporate partners, the media, and the general public.

The redesign of the homepage and a number of sub-pages should reflect this great opportunity, building a site that is content-rich, visually dynamic, easy to navigate, uses the latest in Web and multimedia technology, and conveys the reality of NC State and its many offerings, contributions, and accomplishments. The redesign seeks to create a Web presence that showcases a great university and reflects the unique character of NC State as a leader in teaching, research and public service.

Who is doing the formal redesign?
Chancellor James Oblinger has appointed a university-wide Website Advisory Committee to make recommendations concerning the design, navigation, content, and technology involved in updating the www.ncsu.edu site. The 30-member committee is charged specifically with oversight of the evaluation, planning, site architecture and visual design, engineering, and testing required to re-launch the homepage and top-tier sub-pages. The committee also is tasked with developing policy and procedures to govern the site and making recommendations for the critical on-going workflow, updates, and maintenance of the site post-launch.

What will the redesign involve?
The plan is to examine the current site and its architecture and usage, review best practices from other university Websites, and solicit input from the campus community. The redesign will focus on the current homepage and those first-tier pages that have a broad focus as well as the creation of new content pages that communicate critical messages not now being addressed. A key goal of the project will be to ensure that visitors can quickly and easily find the information they need when visiting the Website.

The Website Advisory Committee’s mandate is to make recommendations that will:

• Improve the look and feel of the site
• Enhance ease of navigation
• Create an engaging homepage and first-tier group of pages that reflects the character of NC State
• Use the site to help promote NC State’s strengths and contributions
• Implement new technology and multimedia that enhances site effectiveness.

The redesign will not involve any site or page created by colleges, departments, programs, units, faculty, students, or staff members.

What about new technologies like podcasts?
All Web-based technologies will be considered to ensure the most effective and attractive presentation. Early suggestions included numerous references to podcasts, dynamic and rotating visuals, click-on tour opportunities, streaming video, multimedia offerings, and other capabilities.

When will the new homepage go online?
The goal is to have a prototype available during the summer to gain campus input and to have the new homepage ready for the fall semester. Following launch, a smaller, standing committee will be designated to lead the on-going oversight and policy of the central site and homepage.

How can I participate?
The committee will seek input and feedback from the university community throughout the redesign project, and will offer regular updates on progress on the redesign team’s Website, www.ncsu.edu/redesign. Students, faculty, and staff should be active participants in the planning stages as well as the development of design concepts, site architecture, programming elements, usability evaluation, and the actual launch.

The Website Advistory Committee will frequently report to the campus community regarding progress on site, analysis statistics, usability research and opinions about the current and future site plans. For example, prototypes of the possible page designs will be posted for comment and usability testing will be done throughout the process, which is expected to take at least six months.

One effective way to make your voice heard is to review the sub-committees of the Website Advisory Committee. These sub-committees have been charged with specific elements of the redesign. Sending an email to the listed head of the sub-committee will ensure your thoughts will be brought to the attention of the entire Advisory Committee.

Any early feedback to the project?
More than 1,800 individuals responded to an online Web usability survey conducted in early March. Of those, nearly 70 percent were current NC State faculty, staff and students.
Nearly 66 percent of the respondents indicated that they came to the site to get specific information. This correlates with the percentage of current faculty, staff and students that responded to the survey.

More than 90 percent of people indicated that they accomplished their goals and didn't "get lost." Among the most visited locations: news features, athletics, and registration and records.

Individual comments included in the Web survey were very helpfu. Among the most common comments were that there were too many links and listings on secondary pages and that the homepage needed a more dynamic look and feel and updated content and features. There were several suggestions for improving site navigation by improving the search functionality, making contact numbers easy to find, and adding an A-Z index list for all university-related sites.

Other suggestions included having Webmail more prominent, improving the campus map and virtual tour, and making financial information easier to find and more understandable.

There were many respondents who suggested that they liked the current site and did not desire any major changes.