An updated design and improved technology are being applied to the University of Notre Dame website (http://nd.edu). The new visual design will be unveiled tomorrow (July 1).
“The Web is an ever-changing communications platform,” says Todd Woodward, associate vice president for marketing communications at the University. “We have strived in all our digital communications to stay ahead of the curve. This redesign is an evolution that mirrors where the world is moving in terms of digital consumption of information.
“Our last redesign moved us from communicating in links to telling video stories just ahead of the YouTube explosion. We think the changes we are making will improve usability and accessibility to information. We have made minor tweaks to the navigation and focused on making the site more mobile-friendly.”
The new visual design is intended to provide users with easier access to important information, reinforce ties between the University and local community, and convey the spirit and beauty of the Notre Dame community and campus. One of the most visited sites in the Notre Dame Web domain, the home page receives up to one million hits each month. It is a central communication tool for reaching key external audiences and supporting student and faculty recruitment.
As a result of focus groups and extensive research involving internal and external audiences, a new feature area will replace the existing video carousel on the nd.edu home page. This new content area will highlight a single topic in a long-format, multimedia presentation that will incorporate multidisciplinary themes from across campus departments to tell a broad Notre Dame story.
In addition, as users hover over the main navigation, an “apron menu” will appear that offers one-click access to the most popular areas of the site.