More News

We are extremely excited to announce that the first two members of NC State's first Department of Web Communications have joined our Public Affairs team. As discussed previously, the team will be integrated with the News Services and Creative Services team and will include a director, web content manager, designer and developer. Our only regret is that these folks will be joining us after the August 15 launch. How's that for planning?

Tim Jones will join NC State at the Director of Web Communications after nearly six years at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., a city known best for its endless supply of tri-cornered hats and miles of pancake houses. There he worked in University Relations as a writer, editor, photographer, news marketer, occasional producer, Webmaster, and most recently as the director of Web communications. Tim has spent the past year helping engineer and launch the university-wide Web redesign project now under way at William & Mary. Prior to entering the glorious world of Higher Education, but after abandoning his dream of becoming a commercial brewmaster, Tim worked as a reporter for a small southeastern Virginia newspaper.

Tim is married to his college sweetheart, Verena. The couple’s 16-month-old daughter, Maia, loves being outside, even in sweltering heat and suffocating humidity. When inside, she enjoys not sleeping and stealing her daddy’s iPod.

Dave Pond comes to NC State with a wealth of Web, magazine and newspaper writing and editing experience. Dave will hold down the Web writer position. Most recently, Dave was the Web producer and team writer for CarolinaHurricanes.com during the team's run to the Stanley Cup championship (and has the ring to prove it). He's also served as a communications specialist for Wake County government, has written for a number of regional and national publications on a freelance basis and is a past North Carolina Press Association award-winning reporter. Dave is married and lives in Clayton with his wife Heather - whom he somehow talked into marrying him - their daughter Mallory (3) and their dog, Boz.

We hope we'll announce the rest of our new team shortly.

A Change Will Do Us Good.

UPDATE: To see the new design go to www-new.ncsu.edu.

What's life without surprises, right? As we are a less than a week away from our official launch we offer this curve ball ... we have redesigned the Flash area on the home page. We did say "beta."

After going through some user testing and feedback over the last month as well as the process of developing and updating content on the site, we decided to make some changes to this area. As you'll see, we have removed the background image that sat behind the feature story. People were having a really hard time reading the white type on the complicated background images (really the biggest complaint of hardly any complaints received). The background colors are now a random rotation of four solid colors built within the site color palette that has been established.

We have also removed the content categories from the strip at the top of the Flash area. What seemed like a good idea was cumbersome. We had great content buried a layer down. On top of that we had up to five stories in each of those categories that we had spent a lot of time developing. That depth just was not being seen by site visitors.

Instead, we have developed the series of thumbnails at the bottom of the Flash area. The area will always have seven stories on the home page and people can see the story content without moving off the home page. Our plan is to update home page features in this area three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) with at least one new video feature per week. The news.ncsu.edu feature (which populates at the bottom part of the home page) will continue to be updated on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Finally, you'll see that we have added a "Dig Deeper" section that is really going to be popular. Basically this will be a quick way to get more information related to a feature story. So, for example, you'll see that with the DARPA story we are linking to you can jump directly to cool YouTUBE footage of the DARPA car at the Virginia raceway.

We hope this will be a big improvement in the user experience.

Here's a jpg of the new home page and within the next day or so you'll see (and be able to interact) with the new design on "beta" site.

Next week will be here fast.

Q&A With Ripple Effects Interactive

As we prepare for the site launch next Wednesday, August 15, we thought some people who had been following the blog might like to hear from the interactive agency partner we have had throughout this process. Ripple Effects Interactive has been a vital partner throughout this re-design. We hired them because of their talent and proven ability. They were experienced in higher ed but we felt we would not get just another university Web site. They have lived up to our expectations. And I think we have been good partners.

What follows is a Q&A with Kate Tomlinson, Client Services Director, that was done to go along with some other launch stories for next week.

Your firm has worked with other universities. What made NC State's redesign unique?

The amount of support and involvement from the NC State community at all levels was extremely unique. Jason Simon and others at NC State made sure there were many voices heard during the process, from our initial discovery meetings with faculty, staff, admissions, students, alumni, and other groups, through the design and development processes.

What sort of challenges did Ripple face?

NC State was determined to have deep input and support for the direction of the web site, which has been and will continue to be critical in its successful launch. That input, the articulation of the NC State brand, took time and meant a very iterative process. We kept working together until we found the design solution everyone felt great about. But we've all persevered to a great end result.

Was there anything about NC State that made such a laborious process easier?

For one, it's a great school with great people! The professionals we worked with at NC State understood how intricate the redesign process is, took ownership and paid amazing attention to detail. Clients who don't grasp the complexity or really think about what they want during the design process aren't as satisfied with the end product. NC State took the time to figure out their vision and set up an organization and processes to support the site during the production process and to be able to continually evolve it over time.

Was there anything about NC State that made it stand out when compared with other clients, especially other universities?

I think all of the things I mentioned above. The support at all levels of the NC State community for this initiative was extremely unique. Especially in a university of this size. The diligence and time put into making this site what they school wanted it to be is another.

Is Ripple going to stay involved with NC State, or is the relationship over once the hard launch occurs?

We hope so! We'd like to continue to help guide the evolution of the site and other web initiatives and have a long list of ideas. The web is the single most important medium to prospective college students. We hope it will not just make a lasting impression that helps students decide to attend NC State, but becomes an integral part of the experience for students, faculty, staff, and alumni. We hope it's a site in which everyone feels pride and ownership.

Is there anything else you'd like to add about working with NC State during this process?

We hope everyone enjoys the site!

New Site in "Beta" Launch

We're sure there's at least one person avidly following this blog. So, for you, here's a preview of the new site before it's launched to the rest of our campus on our current home page tomorrow (July 18). Send your feedback to website_feedback@ncsu.edu or post your comments here.

Hardly the end of this project. This is really just a step forward into what we hope the site becomes.

www.ncsu.edu/newsite

Getting Close.

The new NC State website, www.ncsu.edu, will launch in a "beta" or soft launch phase the week of July 16. At that point, the site will have most of the content and multimedia features. Some technical issues and other final elements will be tweaked throughout the month prior to a hard launch the week of Aug. 13.

Here is an article about the soft launch.

The hard work continues.

Showtime!

Throughout the focus groups and discovery sessions in developing the new NC State website we heard a common comment, "show us don't just tell us." And from current students and future students it was use video, use video, use video. So, it's showtime.

As mentioned previously, the main "feature" area on the home page has been developed in Flash. And while some stories will be image/copy, others will be video stories. Click here (or on the image below) to watch an actual sample of how the Flash video will function on the home page. Just press "play" and watch a feature on the recent Art to Wear fashion show put on by NC State students from the College(s) of Design and Textiles. You'll notice that the video is fully accessible with closed captions and a complete transcript as a PDF.


If you're interested in a general project update, Public Affairs is in the midst of writing and producing all the content, images, video and other stories that will make up the 130 pages of the new NC State site. The site templates are being coded and then everything will be integrated through the new Content Management System. We are planning for a mid-July "soft" launch and plan to go live prior to the Fall semester in August.

We recently reviewed the entire Web project with the WebCom group of communications and Web professionals at Duke with a very enthusiastic response. In addition, we have been asked and will present to a group of campus Web developers at UNC-CH on June 7. It's exciting that NC State's project has been so enthusiastically received.

We are also in the midst of recruiting staff for our new Web Communications team -- a Director of Web Communications, Writer/Editor, Web Designer and Web Developer. If you have interest in joining our team check for the position listings at http://jobs.ncsu.edu.

Level Page Designs

Following our earlier posting of an initial programmed prototype of the new NC State home page, we’re excited to show final designs for the secondary or level pages (what you’ll see if you click on any of the main navigation). To view prototypes of all the level page designs, click here. Please note that all images are just flat JPG's at this time and not programmed templates.

The committee will roll out the redesigned university home and level pages this summer.

When viewing the designs, the first two pages you’ll see are templates that will be used for most secondary pages. The navigation in the left-hand column continues from the home page with bread-crumb navigation to indicate where a visitor is within the site. Third-column (far right) elements include helpful links relevant to the page’s content and other important information delivered via static images, headlines, rotating facts and images or video.

The third image represents a content-heavy template that will be used sparingly.

Finally, the last image shows how visitors will continue to drill down from the home page’s main content or feature area if a user were to click “learn more.” Additional feature stories are archived by category and date. As explained in an earlier blog entry, these videos will be produced not only by Public Affairs, but also by you. We will be seeking regular content and story contributions and ideas from NC State students, faculty and staff, alumni, and parents.

As always, we look forward to your feedback in the comments section.

We're exicted that you're excited.

We’re excited about the feedback received for the new website design – both in this blog and around campus. In case you missed it, here are a couple articles from the NC State student newspaper, Technician.

Article March 19
Viewpoint Editorial March 19