January 9, 2003
New home page, calendar look debut
The UW launched a new home page in mid-December, the first result of a committee that was created to develop a strategy for orienting the page to the external community — including prospective students, donors and prospective donors, visitors, patients and others.
The UW Homepage Design Review Committee was created by former President Richard L. McCormick in May. In the charge letter to the committee, McCormick noted the importance of aligning the home page with the UW’s strategic objectives, and fully integrating the new visual identity into the Web.
The committee is chaired by Jack Faris, vice president for university relations. Faris notes that the current home page is an interim design, with another version expected later this spring.
“We already have MyUW, which allows members of the internal community to customize their home page to whatever configuration they find most useful,” he said. “The work of the committee is to establish a strategy and process for orienting the ‘welcome’ page to our most significant external constituencies and information-seekers.”
The new design prominently displays the University’s new visual identity and contains links to those pages most requested by individuals not on the campuses. The page is intended to be cleaner and simpler to use for people not familiar with the UW.
Users’ response to the new home page has been strong, both positive and negative. Computing & Communications has received nearly 500 e-mails about the new page. “Some people like the new design, and others hate it. Some like the new dark background, but others don’t,” says Melody Winkle, information architect with C&C.
Many people wonder where to find the cambot image — the frequently updated image of Red Square that had been a fixture on the home page. That image, as well as the internal navigation tools, are still available at www.washington.edu/uwin/, known now as the UW Information Navigator (UWIN).
The new home page also contains links to a new communications initiative, Cougars and Huskies for Our Economic Future (www.washington.edu/univrel/cougarsandhuskies/). This page is part of a campaign to gain more state support for Washington’s research universities, according to Harry Hayward, director of strategic communications. It contains facts about the research universities’ contributions to the state’s economy, the recent record of state support, and a copy of the joint resolution regarding state funding adopted by both the UW and WSU regents. Other elements in the information campaign include radio advertising and efforts to reach alumni in the state.
In another recent change to a Web feature, Computing & Communications redesigned the user interface for the events calendar, a comprehensive listing of all public events at the University. You can consult the calendar to get information on concerts, lectures, seminars, and so forth — anything happening on campus or sponsored by a UW unit.
“We made the changes in the public calendar as part of a long term strategy for integrating public and other calendars into an individual’s personal UW calendar,” says Ellen Jensen, assistant director of information systems in Computing & Communications. “In the near future, we hope to develop features for students and teaching faculty to include their quarterly class schedules in their personal calendars, including information about the beginning and ending of the academic quarter as well as holidays.”
The new calendar uses the “look” developed for MyUW. Users can customize the calendar, selecting categories of events to display. The calendar is also searchable by words contained in the entries. People who use the MyUW personal calendar can drag and drop events from the public calendar into their personal calendar. The calendar itself can become part of a customized personal page in MyUW.
Events in the calendar are entered by representatives of the sponsoring units, using a simple online form. The events then appear not only online, but in the University Week calendar.
“We download our calendar on the Monday morning prior to our Thursday publication, so events should be entered by the end of the previous week to appear in the paper,” said Nancy Wick, University Week editor.
For information about entering events into the calendar, contact Bob Roseth, roseth@u.washington.edu. The calendar can be accessed from the UW homepage by clicking on “about the UW” and then “events.” From the UWIN page, click on “events.” The online University Week, at www.uweek.org, also has a link to the calendar.
