This communication was originally sent out via Daily Digest and Insider in October of 2012. We are re-sending it the week for anyone who may have missed it. This is happening prior to the many changes you will soon see on our website.
Our University Marketing web team, represented by interim Senior Director Josianne Pennington, recently proposed a new home page design for our website to President Loeschke. The response? “How soon can you make it happen?”
Working with our partners in OTS, a re-designed home page will launch mid-January (now this week).
http://www.towson.edu/main/abouttu/newdesign/homepage.html
On that day, a number of refinements to our current site will also be unveiled:
1. All pages on our site will be centered with a new site-wide background.
2. A new site-wide “Top Navigation” bar will replace the current one. Some of the top sections of our global site navigation will be renamed:
About (formerly About TU)
Academics
Research
Campus Life (formerly Life@TU)
Arts & Culture
Athletics
In the Community (formerly TU In the Community)
Giving (formerly Support TU)
What was Marketplace will now be renamed Store and will link directly to the University Store.
3. Many prominent landing pages on our site will be refreshed with new headers, more use of white space on pages and on left navigation backgrounds and a single top-page photo instead of the current three-photo banner.
4. A new site-wide “Contact Footer” will be added above the redesigned current footer, as shown in the same attachment. The Contact Footer will include a link to our campus maps, phone numbers for police, and other key university phone numbers.
5. A re-conceived Newsroom—now set up in a blog format.
New Content Management System and Site Redesign Planned
Related to this “facelift” for our web presence is an upcoming selection of a new content management system (CMS), or web publishing system. The CMS will offer our communicators campus-wide access to a web publishing toolkit that will allow for more flexibility in page layout and design.
In parallel with the implementation of the CMS, an outside firm will be selected to re-organize our website structure and redesign our site to be contemporary, vibrant and supportive of increasing use of photography and video—the visual enhancements to text that we need to better tell our story.
A separate communication will be sent out at the beginning of the semester on the timing and key milestones for the purchase and implementation of the CMS and the site-wide redesign.
The redesigned home page and site-wide changes described above are interim changes to put our best face forward to the public and future students.
We will test the new home page and News blog with website users and make any changes that offer users a better experience navigating our site.
We’re excited to be taking these steps forward to better communicate Towson University’s excellence, leadership and innovation to our students and to other key constituents in the community and around the world.
Michael Heasley, Director of Digital Strategy
University Marketing and Communications
