UMBC Webteam

To prepare for the entire site redesign, a collaborative web team known as “Emedia” (consisting of staff from the Offices of Institutional Advancement and Information Technology) will reflect on comments about the new homepage “sneak peek,” including follow up emails to those who offered comments (and are willing to talk to us some more).

We had also planned to do the following, but will announce and report on them in this blog during the 2005-06 academic year:

* Re-convene a campus web advisory group consisting of students, faculty, staff, alumni and other campus stakeholders;
* Share results of needs analysis interviews with selected campus groups from 2004-2005 as well as future web usability interviews;
* Conduct peer and competitor site benchmarking studies, similar to those done for the 1998 and 2000 homepage redesigns (more info);
* Conduct search engine and site traffic analyses to see what users are searching for and the sites they frequent the most;
* Develop an accessible and standards-compliant web site.

In retrospect, a lot has changed since UMBC launched an entirely new site in 1998. Our site is bigger, our users are more web savvy and web technologies have grown in complexity and are still maturing. As a result, our process for redesigning UMBC’s web presence needs to change as well. While we have listened to feedback in the past, we need to listen some more and then do our best to provide a site that meets the original goals for the site:

* Focus on information needs of all users;
* Improve ease of use and navigation;
* Improve and maintain a consistent UMBC identity throughout the site.

Okay, let us know what you think, and if you’d like to participate in the various user research activities described above. You can use the comment form below or send email to webteam@umbc.edu.