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University of New Hampshire
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University of New Hampshire
SITE OF THE WEEK

The hardest job in web design is reaching many audiences while working for many bosses. I’d rather battle a multi-headed Hydra than manage the University of New Hampshire web site.

 

Visit the UNH Site

I went to UNH and I taught English there, so I have an inkling of how complex the sprawling state university can be. My UNH time was pre-computer, but I’m guessing that the place has only grown a few new heads since then.

Everybody who visits the site wants it to fulfill a specific need instantly and easily. Parents want to know about tuition fees and financial aid. Students want to know about classes and parking tickets. Alums want sports scores. Scholars want data. Every teacher and department head wants his or her academic area featured.

So why is Michael Jones so calm? As Director of Editorial and Creative services he should be crawling the wall. Managing the UNH web site with few staff and no budget is just one of his many jobs.

Jones recently rolled out the "new improved" version the UNH web site and, to his great delight, it was universally lauded by faculty, students and administrators. In its first two days online, he got only one complaint.

The success of the new site is the result of enormous planning. Jones says that for months his office walls were papered in elaborate flow charts, mapping out the most efficient design. That design was based on questions, focus groups, planning and questioning.

"We don’t have a webmaster," Jones says. "We have a team. We also have new leadership, a new provost and a new VP for University Communications and Marketing. The current leadership views the web in very positive terms."

Consider this -- 97% of prospective college searches now begin on the Web. Jones says college sites have only a matter of seconds to draw in prospective students.

The former UNH web site, for my money, looked like an electrical plug crammed with hundreds of adapters and extension cords. Everybody was requested a link to the homepage, it seems, got one. Jones’ task was to drop a neat shell over the top of a complex network of highly independent people. Now visitors decide, as they arrive, which path they want to travel from the get-go. Are you a prospective or current student, an alum, a UNH staff or teacher or a parent? The reader makes the initial decision.

The home page is – well – lovely. There are six current introductory photos that stretch across the screen. There’s a shot of the campus, the nearby river, a high-tech underwater experiment, students doing research. All of it looks fancier than anything I remember. Below that are a very few UNH news headlines that click to updated articles. There is a simple Google search engine and a nice simple menu of choices.

Getting guidance from the top, Jones says, has made all the difference. The university now has a working academic plan, a road map for what leaders want UNH to become. A communications plan has grown from that and the new web site design comes out of that plan. The university, Jones says, is about discovery. Everything descends from that central understanding.

Sure, underneath it all is a bubbling caldron that goes every which-way. But on the surface – and that’s where it counts with web sites – the place seems wholly comprehensible.