A New APSU.edu

I know some of you will like it…..
I know some of you will not….
But here are the reasons why it needed to happen.

The jumpers were great. They were eye-catching and boosted the name of Austin Peay throughout the university community. However, the site itself lacked many amenities and services which good college Web sites should. It also did a great dis-service to the many students, faculty and staff who were doing great things on this campus.

So, I hope you see the new Web site as being as vibrant as the old with all of the added features that we have worked to develop over the past year. I also hope that APSU.edu will continue to be a prominent informational and educational source for you, whether you are a student, faculty or staff member, alumni or visitor.

You can see screen shots of the new home page below.

Starting in October, we will begin rolling out new departmental Web sites to match the new design. We hope to dig as deep as we can with this design, offering a more consistent user experience across much of the site. So, look for changes to many of the sites you visit over the next few months.

Please do not hesitate to leave your comments (good and bad) by emailing The Gov (gov@apsu.edu).

Finding information in a vast sea of Web sites, PDFs, etc… can be a daunting task, especially when what you are looking for may be named differently. In comes “Quick Access” to the rescue.

Quick Access is an open source JQuery solution to finding information based on keywords. We will be rolling it out on our A to Z Index with the new design as well as other areas in the future. Try it out here:

http://www.apsu.edu/beta/atoz

OK. It’s time to look at the new site design. But first, a little background…

The “blue sky” and “jumper” designs were a first not only for Austin Peay, but for higher ed Web sites in general. It was groundbreaking and fun. However, it also came with much contention. Users found the combination of the blue sky background with copy text to be conflicting, not offering enough contrast to be completely readable. This became even more of a problem when any non-black text was used. Also, the jumpers were an eye-catching entrance into our Web site. However, the promotion of campus news and events, emergency notification and general information suffered. APSU has wonderfully talented students in and out of the classroom. Also, our faculty and staff are making noteworthy strides in their fields. We wanted to highlight these accomplishments as much as possible. We also wanted to better promote the great cultural, social and athletic events that Austin Peay has to offer both on-campus and to the community at large. This feature was lacking terribly in our current design.

So, what did we do to relieve these issues?

Home Page

• More campus news promotion
• More campus event promotion
• Rotating slideshow highlighting student/faculty/staff success stories
• More quick links for easier navigation
• A dedicated area for campus emergency notification
• Integrated search capabilities

Click to open full-size image

Secondary Pages

• Integrated search capabilities
• Easier to read text and navigation
• Flexibility for new designs/additions

Click to open full-size image

But not all is new. In an effort to continue consistency with our current Web site and printed publications, the “blue sky” has been re-produced in the new design. We find these colors to work well with the Austin Peay red.

Look for many of the top-tier pages to move to this new design in August. In the weeks leading up to this change, we will go more in-depth into some of the specific changes to the site. We hope you find them to be positive and helpful in your use of the APSU Web site.

The big question….how do you keep your content fresh (especially on over 75,000 pages)? Well, it’s up to your content contributors…your stakeholders…your faculty/staff/graduate students/student workers. So, the easier it is for them, the more likely your content will stay fresh, updated and pertinent.

So, we looked at a content management system to ease this work for our content contributors. Unfortunately, many of our focus group users found it to be clunky, unfriendly and much more difficult and time-consuming than the current software….Microsoft Frontpage. So, we decided to forgo the CMS (for now) in favor of the most recent Microsoft product…ExpressionWeb. It has many of the same functions as Frontpage. It even follows the same look, structure and icons. It also takes advantage of ASP.NET functionality, allowing us to develop Master Pages, site maps and such to ensure that our users are only changing content, not making major design changes. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

So, many of our new pages will follow the ASP.NET language, having the extension aspx. However, we also be taking advantage of some new capabilities for database management, using PHP and MySQL. Therefore, some bookmarks will no longer work.

One of the main tasks of the new Web site design was to ensure full accessibility for as many groups as possible. The W3C defines Web accessibility as…

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web.

Currently most Web sites and Web software have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the Web. As more accessible Web sites and software become available, people with disabilities are able to use and contribute to the Web more effectively.

Also, the federal government has developed Section 508 which states…

Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency.

So, the number one priority was to design and develop a site that offered a complete user experience for the widest possible range of people.

Take a look at the numbers behind the Web site…

http://redesign.apsublogs.com/apsuedu-at-a-glance

Higher education Web sites are becoming more and more important not only as informational tools, but as lifestyle and educational tools as well. Just look at the numbers. APSU and its concurrent Web sites average 15 MILLION hits per month. During peak admission and registration months, the Web site can easily average more than 25 MILLION hits.

Online course software, library resources, news, schedules, streaming concerts and athletic events…the reasons for people of all ages and backgrounds to visit our Web site has grown exponentially over the last decade. It’s a great problem to have. However, this also brings many challenges with it as well. More on that to come.

Before you can look forward, it’s always a good idea to look back. The APSU Web site has seen many faces over the last 11 years, from a one-graphic list of links to the infamous “jumpers” of today. Here is a timeline of the changes.

Note: Some archived images may not display correctly.
Images and archived Web sites courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

1997
http://web.archive.org/web/19970709074134/http://www.apsu.edu/
The Web was still in its public infancy and load times were a major issue. Therefore, images had to be at a minimum.

1999
http://web.archive.org/web/19990208003343/http://apsu.edu/
Still very few images. Departmental pages began to see consistent header graphics.

2001
http://web.archive.org/web/20010118200700/http://www.apsu.edu/
The introduction of stylized text and landing pages gave the Web site a more personalized feel.

2003
http://web.archive.org/web/20030411010751/http://www.apsu.edu/
Adding features such as Hot Topics, Announcements and Spotlight, the APSU Web site began to evolve into a new informational medium.

2004
http://web.archive.org/web/20040715005310/http://www.apsu.edu/
The APSU Web site began to target certain groups on- and off-campus by better structuring content and removing unnecessary links.

2005-present
http://web.archive.org/web/20060805094811/http://www.apsu.edu/
A unique Web site for any university to this day, the APSU “jumpers” signified a change to more recruitment and marketing sensibilities.

So, what does the next design hold for APSU?

Feel free to leave comments on your opinions of each version of the APSU Web site…good and bad.