The Story

New College Web Site Design Announced

Feb. 5, 2008 | By Jake Robert Nelson, DSJ Interim News Editor

After two months of students' opinions on one of three choices, the chosen design for the College's new web site has been announced. Courtesy of re.web.

The College’s website, a banal combination of green, gold and khaki, does not really inspire any great feelings of Tribe Pride. The website is merely a necessary tool used by anyone interested in the school: prospective students can look at admissions criteria, current students can see which courses are required for a Black Studies major and alumni can donate to the Fund for William and Mary.

The College has spearheaded an effort to give the website a completely new look - an endeavor called “re.web” - and has just recently released the three design concepts in tandem with the design firm mStoner.

The goals of the re.web project, as stated on the project’s website, include refocusing the site on users, making navigation across the site easier and making the site responsive to all its audiences.

On Feb. 1, re.web announced the design concept for the College’s new website. The change to the new website is expected to start in the summer of 2008. The concept is heavily image-based and will feature a special section entitled “W&M Impact” that will highlight current research on campus.

The new site hopes to have a greater focus on individual users and to feature stories of individual students. The design concept has a pull-down menu leading to specific home pages for current students, prospective students, faculty, parents and alumni. The concept also features excerpts from student blogs.

The main impetus for a change of the site was a report assessing the current site completed in 2006. The report compiled major complaints about the site as a result of local focus groups and an online submission form.

The ten most common complaints included difficulty in finding information on specific majors and departments, admissions data, information for students about to arrive at the college and current and future events to happen on campus.

The report cites the websites of Harvard University, Swarthmore College and the University of California at Berkeley to be model web sites, and it takes into account specific features from each in outlining the new site’s goals.

Final changes still need to be made to the design concept. While the College’s home page will switch to the new design in the summer of 2008, the change will be gradual.

“[W]e won't wake up one morning to find that all W&M sites have a brand new look from top to bottom,” said the re.web website. “It will take many months to complete the move to the new design.”