First Committee Meeting. Minutes.

Debbie Griffith called the meeting to order shortly after 8:00 a.m. Attending were B. J. Attarian (representing Greg Sparks), Tony Brock, Becky Bumgardner (representing David Jolley), Mark Dearmon (representing Dee Shore), Tilla Fearn, Dave Green, Kathy Hart, Ron Kemp, Kelly Lucey, Pat McLean, Jason Maners, Brad Mehlenbacher, Harry Nicholos, Jordan O'Mara, Saroj Primlani, Michael Rappa, Joshua Smith, Jim Wilder, and Alex Yacoub.

An overview of the committee charge was given:
To oversee the development of an improved Web presence for the university using the “core” www.ncsu.edu site.

Specifically that includes:

• Improving the look and feel of the site
• Improving usability
• Creating engaging content that reflects the character of NC State
• Developing "marketing" content as well as basic information
• Using new and emerging technology and multimedia
• Development of policies governing the site
• Recommending ongoing staff and maintenance considerations
• Transparent re-design process to keep campus informed

An ad-hoc committee has overseen maintenance of the www.ncsu.edu homepage for the past five years, but significant architecture and content changes have been minimal, due to the lack of dedicated staffing for this effort. That ad hoc committee began redesign discussions several months ago, identifying several peer university sites that could be models for our Web site redesign. Several of those sites were outlined and details were discussed. Sites included: Ohio State, Princeton, USC and University of Virginia.

An open discussion followed organized around the following questions:

1/What is the primary goal of the site?

Comments included: 1/ communication 2/ marketing 3/ student recruitment. Other comments were: need for richer visual design, communicate who we are, brand ourselves as a certain type of institution; show what’s happening on campus; tie to the Achieve marketing campaign;

2/ Who are our target audiences

Comments included: the need to gather data that will tell us how people arrive on the site, and what they want when the come to the site.

Usability survey of the current site should be undertaken, but we should be cautious about concluding that current user behavior may not indicate best design

3/Recommended next steps

a. investigate hiring an outside firm to help guide the web redesign process
b. form a coordinating subcommittee to interact directly with the outside firm, develop a scope of work and a timeline
c. form working subcommittees to gather data, usability analysis, an other tasks