N.C. State’s virtual front door will get a new face Wednesday as the Division of Creative Services launches a workable version of what NCSU’s home page will soon become.
The re-design process started on February 16, 2006 when the Web site advisory committee was formed. The committee’s purpose was to give the Chancellor a vision of what a Web site overhaul would take the form of.
With the homepage getting 80,000 unique visits daily and over four million pages views each day, Jason Simon, executive director of Creative Services, said there was “a huge need, an obvious need” to revamp.
Simon said the need itself arose from the site not being useful to its visitors. Currently when students click on the “For Students” link on the homepage, they are sent to a long page of links. The Committee hopes the new site plans to offer a more content-rich experience. “Our Web site needed to be as technologically advanced as N.C. State is,” Debbie Griffith, associate vice chancellor for Public Affairs said.
The next three to four weeks will be the “soft” launch stage of the Web site. This means the current homepage will pop up when someone goes to www.ncsu.edu, and on this page there will be a link to the new website. During this time Creative Services will get feedback and continue to work out the kinks. A full launch is set to roll out the week of August 13.
The new Web site features a flash and content heavy homepage which includes among other things, personal stories, University quick facts, and research highlights.
According to Griffith, University officials “want students to be active in the [new] site,” and want to be able to help students tell their stories about NCSU.
“It’s about telling N.C. State’s story to a worldwide audience,” Griffith said.
To accomplish this, the University will be hiring four full-time positions to maintain the site. Soon there will be a Director of Web Communication supported by writing, development, and design staff. Simon said “there has never been staff with the website” and they now they will be “keeping it fresh.”
The hope is that site will be flexible and able to constantly change and evolve according to the needs of the University. Creative Services is counting on increased student involvement and interaction. Students will be able to click on a link called “Share your story” and eventually have the ability to upload pictures, video and text which the web staff will highlight the best of on the web.
Ashley Winfree, a senior in biomedical engineering, said she just cares about the utility of the site, calling it a “must-have”, but also said should would not mind it looking a little prettier.
