Visitors to the University’s home Web site might have a nice surprise waiting for them: It’s been redesigned.
Improving appearance and ease of use were two of the main goals.
“We redesign the main Univer-sity Web site on a two-year cycle to keep it fresh-looking, and to adjust our content and navigation to reflect what we have learned about how our Web-site visitors use our site,” Webmaster Gail Wright said. “We gather this information from analyzing our site statistics and from user input.”
The biggest change to the site — wustl.edu — resulted from careful analysis of the statistics and user input.
“The most important upgrade to the Web site was the movement of the search engine to a very prominent position on the page,” Wright said. “This, too, is a reflection of what we have learned about our users’ surfing habits.”
Ah, but a webmaster’s work is never done. Now that the main Web site has been redesigned, it stands to reason that all of the other University pages will follow suit.
“Our job now is to work our way through the thousands of Web pages that have not yet had the new look and feel applied to them and update those as well,” Wright said. “We continue to develop new sites and to enhance what we already have online.
“We are hoping to start the redesign cycle much earlier this time so that we can begin work on the intricacies of the next incarnation soon.”
Thus far, the feedback has been mostly positive, including a laudatory note sent by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton shortly after the site went live Aug. 22.