UA News Web Sites Unveil Cleaner Look, Enhanced Functionality

April 27th, 2009 - Filed under: Cover Story

web sites

By Lisa Frederick

If you’ve noticed a difference in UA News and its related Web sites lately, it’s not your eyes playing tricks on you. Thanks to a recent redesign led by the University Relations Web Communications team, UA News and its suite of companion sites—Research magazine, Dialog, Dialog Extra, the Video Newsroom, and more—sport a fresh new appearance as well as streamlined functionality.

uanews_videoAndy Rainey, UA director of Web communications, said one major reason for the change is to integrate content more effectively and give users a simpler path both to new and archived information that’s of interest. “All of the previous sites had their own buckets,” he said. “We felt that our best content was often buried several levels deep, and there was no way for users to just stumble across it. Finding the best ways for that great content to rise to the top was our challenge.”

In their new incarnations, the sites are more closely integrated with their counterparts in design and functionality, and they feature more obvious placement of crosspromoted content, underscoring the relationship and common threads between each. And whereas the old sites offered the ability to browse content by date or keyword search, a new system of categories and tags gives users the additional option to browse by general topic, then narrow the search down to specific aspects of that topic.

The new sites also represent a significant improvement in workflow for University Relations by relying on an open-source content management system, which allows non-technical users to update and manage content. The new design expands the options for integrating multimedia and photography, and it allows editors to give additional weight to particularly timely or noteworthy stories, videos and other items independent of the date they were posted. “We can now more effectively integrate stories based on priority and strategically position our best content,” Rainey said.

Other modules, such as the footers at the bottom of each page, are designed to work much harder than they did previously, pointing to companion sites and displaying a preview of the current content for each. The footers also include at-a-glance lists of the most popular and most recent articles from the entire suite. Features such as these, Rainey said, encourage users to spend more time on the sites and boost the probability that they’ll come across additional content of interest.

(l to r) Brian Jones, Matthew Muro, Andy Rainey and Lisa Sandy

(l to r) Brian Jones, Matthew Muro, Andy Rainey and Lisa Sandy

One other key asset, Rainey said, is the availability of more than two dozen RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, which allow users to subscribe to a continuous stream of updates about specific topics covered within the UA News family of sites. “RSS is really like a Web site sending you e-mails,” Rainey said. “You can subscribe to feeds about topics you’re interested in, and news or information on that topic is delivered to you whenever it is updated.” For those new to the medium, an RSS help page, accessible from the RSS subscription page on each site, explains the basics.

UA’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels also have a more direct presence, with links to each displayed prominently in the footer of each page. Rainey said the team plans to create new content tailored expressly for each social networking channel, which will also help create additional exposure for UA’s best content.

The Web Communications team spearheading the redesign includes lead developer Matthew Muro, Brian Jones, Lisa Sandy, and Rainey. A link to the UA News Center will remain in its usual location on the UA homepage. You can access the site directly, as well as link to the companion sites, at uanews.ua.edu.

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