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.