UAA’s homepage gets a new, student-centric look March 28, 2016

When you visit www.uaa.alaska.edu on Monday, March 28, the Anchorage campus homepage will have a fresh new look, emphasizing outreach to prospective students and a more overt statement about ways the university supports the state with research and information.

The graphic below offers a user-friendly walk through.

First, feel at home. Critical features from the existing homepage will transition to the new homepage, These include quick access portals to Blackboard, UA Online, student and employee email, Office 365, eWolf ePortfolio and Password Reset. Find them by rolling your mouse over the Login icon on the yellow utility navigation. This ribbon also features the existing site search tools: A-Z, Calendar, Directory, Library, Map and News.

The new page is organized differently than the existing homepage, but still relies on storytelling to share UAA's achievements. At the top of the page, the "hero image" will tell a visual story about UAA. Not on March 28, but soon, this image will refresh each time you open the page, pulling from a pool of up to 10 photos that can be updated seasonally or as opportunity presents.

New look, same great stories

Beneath the hero image find four modules. The first is devoted to content appealing to prospective students. Notice the "Request Information," "Apply Now" and "Tour" buttons. These "call-to-action" features link to specific pages on the site and are designed to assist prospective students in quickly acquiring more information about UAA.

The second module is aimed at showcasing positive impact the university has on the state of Alaska. Look here for research responding to key questions for the state. ISER's recent fiscal analysis is a good example, but there are many others, from research into weather-related coastal erosion to findings on the health and well-being of Alaska's children.

Module three will feature student, staff or faculty achievement, as well as a small infographic that highlights a fact about UAA. Module four has two tasks. On the left it will highlight a Seawolf Athletics story-not game and season coverage (click through to GoSeawolves.com for that), but features about the athletes. On the right, find a story behind a big cultural or educational event happening at UAA.

Responsive design

This redesign coincides with the arrival of a new content management system (CMS) for UAA, called OU Campus. With its full implementation on June 30, 2016, UAA joins more than 700 other universities in selecting a top higher-education CMS in the United States today.

OU Campus enables a major upgrade for UAA in web capability. Easily the biggest new advantage is its "responsive design." This means the site will look good and be user friendly on a smartphone or a tablet as well as a desktop or laptop.

Metrics show a quarter of viewers come to UAA's site via mobile devices. Nationally, 68 percent of prospective students say they have viewed a college website on their mobile device.

UAA's old CMS is not responsive on mobile devices. That lack explains the higher bounce rates-viewers moving on from www.uaa.alaska.edu-that occur now on mobile devices. The new design will positively influence this trend, giving UAA a much more competitive web environment for prospective and continuing students.

Transition and opportunity

Throughout this academic year, colleges and administrative units have been busy moving their digital content from the old CMS to the new CMS. Many units opted to have IT move everything for them. Then, with the new site still private and the old site still available to the public, web authors have been reorganizing content in the new system. When they are ready for the OU Campus version to go live, IT flips the switch for them.

All sites will go live June 30, 2016. But this isn't the end. Really, it's a great new beginning.

Over the past 10 years, research on user web habits has grown exponentially. Not only are audiences more comfortable navigating the web, but the web itself has continued to change rapidly. Search is so improved that it easily eclipses traditional bookmarking, fat-footer Quick Link sections or use of landing pages to begin a search. "Google it" is the new norm. Colleges, programs and services will benefit greatly from knowing and understanding "search engine optimization" (SEO) techniques so web users can easily find them.

Internet and intranet

These changing web habits will influence how UAA web authors prepare and post material on OU Campus. Current best practices, backed by Noel-Levitz and OmniUpdate research reports, emphasize the critical value of student-centric college websites in successfully recruiting and retaining students. To foster that trend, UAA has added an intranet, an internal website with sign-on entry, so more internal content (forms, archived materials, etc.) can be moved away from public-facing pages to this more internal but still very accessible location. Each department or unit will decide how best to organize its content for public-facing pages and the more internal intranet.

Take a deep breath

This goes to the hardworking web authors currently transitioning content into UAA's new CMS, a big job. To help web authors find dedicated work time for the new CMS, a computer lab in Beatrice McDonald Hall (Room 232) is reserved every Friday (except April 1) from 8:30-11:15 a.m. This is an open work session where web authors can work alone, collaborate with others or get specific assistance from an OU expert user.

But the "deep breath" message is also meant for the whole community encountering www.uaa.alaska.edu as we make the transition. The arrival of OU Campus represents big change that requires time and process. We'll get there and we'll have a better website when we do.

Also, moving into OU Campus is not a static or one-time moment to focus on web content. The web has evolved into a valuable communication tool. It will continue to change. Staying up to date will enable UAA to more effectively transmit its value to prospective students, no matter where they are in the world.

To that end, Advancement and IT Services will continue to share college site best practices and marketing trends as UAA settles into its new OU Campus web home.

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