Author: Claire Diggins
President Veitch, along with fellow faculty and staff members, are in the process of selecting a web design firm to redesign the Occidental website by the end of the 2011-2012 academic year. The administration believes that the current website, launched in 2005, doesn’t best represent the college or utilize the latest technologies.
“Oxy’s website is our face to the world. We need a site that gives people an understanding of the texture and commitments of the institution, a website that is dynamic, visually compelling and easy to navigate,” President Veitch said.
While the the administration has been thinking about redesigning the website for some time, the site’s redevelopment is only in its initial stages.
In mid-December, Occidental’s web team sent out requests for proposals for the new website to ten different marketing and web design firms. All firms commissioned had worked on college websites in the past.
A committee, composed of President Veitch, Associate Vice President of Information Research Pam McQuesten, Senior Vice President of Institutional Advancement Dennis Collins, Vice President of Admission and Financial Aid Vince Cuseo, the web design team and others, was formed in February to select a firm and oversee the redesign process.
From the firms who submitted proposals, the team invited four finalists to campus. In early March, three of the four finalists presented their ideas to President Veitch and the committee.
President Veitch was unable to meet with one of the firms, so they will pitch their redesign ideas to the President on April 21.
The committee will then make a decision on which firm will launch the new site and anticipates having the new website up and running by the end of the 2011-2012 academic year.
The team is looking for ways to create a website that would better represent the College online.
“We looked at what these firms have done at other client institutions, looking at previous designs. We wanted to see that their designs really reflected the colleges they’ve worked with and that their process is something that will fit in with us. We looked at whether every college they worked with looked alike or if they were distinctive,” Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management and web team member Brett Schraeder said.
Ultimately, the firm will create the overall web design, make templates for the site and moderately collaborate with Occidental on the content. The firm will then hand off the site for management by the web team that includes Schraeder, Web Content Editor Marsha Inouye and Web Content Manager Rebecca Siegel ’09, among others.
This revamp is part of a vision President Veitch has held before even accepting his position here. According to Tranquada, President Veitch expressed an interest in redesigning the website when he interviewed for the job.
“He said the site didn’t capture the texture of Oxy as well as he thought it should,” Tranquada said. Tranquada agrees with Veitch’s desire to revamp the school web site.
“When we last launched our current website, Facebook was still in a college dorm room in Cambridge. In internet years, it’s pretty dated,” Tranquada said.
Veitch was able to secure funding for the project after becoming the President.
“Its nice to get that kind of vision from the top, we were very excited that Veitch wanted to be involved. We knew it was coming sooner than later and were excited it came very soon. It’s a big project and to have the president take the lead is really great,” Tranquada said.
“The current website has reached the end of its useful life and we would be revamping it anyways. President Veitch is absolutely right that we need to be revisiting it,” Schraeder said.
Once the firm has been selected and begins its work, the committee will convene a redesign group composed of the web team, students and other staff to help steer the project. The web team fully understands that the only way to truly improve the website is to include the campus.
“After we choose the firm, it’s time to engage the campus,” Schraeder said. “We will ask everyone what they like, what they don’t like and what they want to see on the site. This could happen to a smaller extent at the end of this year but certainly in the Fall.”
The team will also ask alumni, prospective students and newly committed students for their input and ideas for the site.
Focus groups will be held throughout the summer and next year so that the entire college community can participate in shaping what kind of content the new website will present. One of the web team’s priorities is to ensure is that the new site is adaptable.
“An important part of the design process is trying to develop architecture and design that gives us flexibility so that when the unexpected happens, like a new department emerges or a new program, we have a design that we can easily work with to reflect those changes without having to redesign the whole website,” Tranquada said.
“That’s the most challenging and most fun part is trying to anticipate what is down the road. How do you anticipate the next Facebook or YouTube and have the flexibility to incorporate that into the web design?”
Another area the team will look at carefully is the inclusion of internal information on the website, which is heavily trafficked by external audiences.
The current site was launched before the MyOxy system was developed, at the time serving as the only location for information for both current students and general web traffic.
“This is an opportunity for us to slim the site down. The extraneous information currently on the site can make it difficult for an external audience to find what they need,” Schraeder said.
He and Tranquada expressed an interest in finding a platform for the site that is easy to use while presenting external-facing information in a cleaner manner. This will also allow students, faculty and staff easy and clear access to internal information.
Another problem with the existing website is that new features have been added over the years without a comprehensive plan in mind, making it inconsistent and difficult to navigate.
“Now we can take a step back, look at everything and ask: does it make sense? Is there a better way to do this? Do we need this particular thing? That’s where focus groups and conversations will come in handy. That’s going to play a critical role in guiding us. We just need to ask the right questions. We will really rely on students and faculty to guide where the internal content should go,” Schraeder said.
The goal is to let the community decide what features would be great to have on the site, be it certain feeds, a better calendar system or social media links. The web team expressed interest in taking advantage of all the new and different ways to tell the Occidental ‘story,’ including video, social media, words and still images.
Tranquada also noted that the possibilities are not quite endless. “We need to be realistic about what we can do. We want to be as comprehensive as possible, but we don’t have unlimited resources of money or staff. The goals must be realistic,” he said.
In order to simplify and streamline the site, the web team has already begun to redesign the academic department sites, which previously lacked any consistent design or framework.
The team has been working to update the departmental sites for a year now. The departments will maintain autonomy over their sites, but the web team is working to make them visually more cohesive and easier to use.
“We’re trying to streamline the academic department sites and make it easier for faculty and staff to update their sites,” Schraeder said. “We want to add some liveliness to the sites and make sure they are easy to maintain. Often times websites sit and don’t change because the platform is old, complicated or unsupported.”
While the overall look and content of the new site will be de
termined in the next year with heavy input from the college community, it is certain the site will still include the basic information one might expect to find on a college website. Moodle and MyOxy will also remain unaffected.
“I can’t say we’re focused on any one thing, but our hope is that the new site tells the Oxy story better – that’s the overarching goal, while keeping all the information that you need on a college website,” Tranquada said.
The team plans to send out a campus-wide announcement once it selects a firm.
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