UNC Asheville Web site launches
UNC Asheville and Capstrat launched a redesigned www.unca.edu last week after nearly ten months of planning, design and development. This is a major accomplishment for both the University and Capstrat. Here are a few items of note:
- The new unca.edu embraces open-source technology. By using the Drupal platform and community-contributed modules the university can easily maintain and enhance the site.
- The process to design the site was truly democratized. We used their baseline research as a foundation for focus groups and surveys that helped shape the design. The final design was selected via a community-wide survey with unprecedented response rate and decisiveness. Of the 1,200 respondents, nearly 75% selected the now-implemented design option.
- The Drupal content management system allowed the UNC Asheville team to migrate most of the site's content. It's helping them do more in-house without sacrificing quality. It is now a foundation they can use to migrate the remainder of their Web sites.
- The site uses user-generated content wherever possible. Community members are encouraged to submit Flickr photos that will appear on the site. They are also using services like YouTube and Vimeo for video content.
- Finally, and probably most importantly, it embodies personality of the university. We set out to create a design that showed the unique nature of UNC Asheville supported by content that demonstrated that uniqueness through evidence. Large feature stories on the homepage and a profile section, called Faces of UNC Asheville, does this quite well.
Not only are we proud of the site, we're excited for the UNC Asheville family. They say that UNC Asheville is one of North Carolina's best-kept secrets. Now they have a Web site commensurate with their great university. It won't be a secret for long.
Comments
Nice job on the refresh. Very intuitive and easy to navigate. The combination of a good CMS and ongoing user-generated content will go a long way toward keeping the site relevant.
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