Union has launched a new design for its Web site with a home page that incorporates a contemporary look aimed to attract prospective students. The main photo on the home page features a different aspect of Union life every time the page is visited or reloaded.
“Building a site that is user-friendly for all the people who visit our site is a real challenge,” said Thomas Smith, Web site director. “When you consider that alumni, students, parents, prospective students and faculty all visit the site regularly, and are looking for different things, you've got to make sure that the site gives them what they want.”
The site features several new areas designed to make the site more user-friendly, according to Smith. The new Visitor's Center will make the first-time visitor to the Union Web site feel at home, and will give campus visitors everything they need to plan their trip. A “quick navigation bar,” which provides an easy-to-use drop-down list of the most commonly visited Union sites, appears on every page of the site, a feature that previously appeared only on the home page.
Links to the main sections of the site now appear in a consistent position at the top of the page, and users are able to see a trail of “breadcrumbs” showing every step back to the home page. The new Web Site Index is similar to a book's index: it provides quick links to the most common “topics” that a user would look for in Union's site. The Site Index provides an alternative to the search engine.
Because of improvements in site architecture and page layout, pages will load, on average, about 50 percent faster with the new design, Smith said. This improvement will be especially noticeable to off-campus users, who typically access the site using a dial-up modem. The faster download times have been achieved by several technical improvements in the site, such as using javascript for navigation, reducing image sizes, reducing the number of unique elements on each page, and installing cascading style sheets.
“Union has always had an attractive, easy-to-use site,” Smith said. “We just built on the strengths of the site and took advantage of some technologies that weren't available just a couple of years ago,” said Smith.
Two new members have joined the Web team in the Communications office. Erik Espana (Union Class of 2000) joined as Web programmer, and Cathy Burbules joined as Web coordinator. Erik and Cathy will be focused on enhancing the interactivity, usability, and quality of the official college Web site.