What began as an updated home page will become an entire newly designed website.
The redesign of the University website is a joint project between the Marketing and Communication Department and Information Technology Services, said Senior Marketing Director Fred Connor. He said ITS handled the coding portion of the design and Marketing and Communication made the creative decisions.
The designing of the new University website began in December and will end this April, said Connor.
Connor said the redesigning of the website is a huge undertaking because of the University’s large “web footprint.”
The University website has over 30,000 unique pages, said Chief Information Officer John Ellinger.
“This is a massive project on a couple fronts,” Ellinger said.
The redesign of the website has been split into three phases. The first phase has been completed, and has switched over sections such as admissions and academics to the new design.
Connor said phase two is currently being worked on, which is focusing on sections such as campus operations, student employment and human services.
The University got help with the redesign from Toledo marketing firm MadHouse, said Ellinger.
Connor said the website is using Adobe CQS for the content management system. With this system any department can now update their pages.
Before the website was redesigned, if a department wanted their page updated, they had to send a request to ITS, Ellinger said. Now they can do it on their own through the management system.
“Instead of having to wait days to have things change, the change will happen in minutes,” Ellinger said.
Ellinger encourages students to give feedback about the new design so it can be improved.
Freshman Donyear Thomas liked the design because he found it visually appealing.
“I think it was a good upgrade because it looked old,” he said.
Junior Cameron Brown said he doesn’t like the redesign because the older version of the site was easy to use. He said it’s harder to navigate the newer design.
Although Ellinger is happy with the new design, he recognizes that there will be many improvements to be made.
“The first iteration of any new system is not how it’s going to look by the end of the year,” he said.
