The wait is over! The new Northland Community & Technical College home page is here for preview before it’s live launch date of January 5th, 2009. Please review the new design and send us your feedback by posting your comments on this blog or by completing our online survey .

The new home page will include several new features including:

• The ability to search NCTC from the home page using our new Google powered search.
• A rotating “billboard” which will feature Northland academic programs, new site features, exciting news & events and other important announcements.
• An all new Help Center (in development) that will help you explore the new website and also better understand other areas of the college.
• Tired of digging around for the pages you use most? Let us do your dirty work by providing you with our Most Popular Links feature which provides quick access to the most used links based on audience type.
• The new main navigation bar now has one-click access to the tools you use most. (D2L, NetMail & eServices)
• For new visitors to the Northland home page the Take Action section provides our new visitors faster access to online apps and other forms.
• Our all new Social Media Center allows visitors to better interact with other Northland students, faculty/staff, alumni or just become a fan of the college.

These are just a few of the exciting new features you can expect to see on the new Northland web site.

Check out the new design here: http://www.northlandcollege.edu/_BETA/

We are excited to share with the college community the first design concept that will be considered as the new Northland College home page. In reviewing the prototype design please note that this is only a flat image and not an actual working website. The images and content used are for the most part only placeholders intended to represent the type of content that will be featured.

What we are looking for is feedback on the overall look or design of the site. We encourage you to provide feedback on the visual design. Give us your input on your favorite aspects, things you like, dislike or would like to see included as well as any other suggestions you may have.

Please complete our short survey or use the comments field at the bottom of this post to send us your feedback on the prototype design.

Click on each thumbnail image to see a larger version of the design concepts.

CONCEPT DESIGN

CONCEPT DESIGN BREAKDOWN

Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments area.

Thanks to all who took the time to complete our student and employee web redesign surveys. We really appreciate the feedback and intend to consider the many comments and suggestions you provided in our plans for continuing improvements to northlandcollege.edu.

Here are some interesting findings from the two surveys:

An interesting difference between the student survey and the employee survey was the question regarding ease of navigation. More than 80 percent of students indicated that they accomplished their goals when visiting the site and ranked site navigation anywhere from “good to excellent”. Were as less than 60 percent of employees ranked site navigation anywhere from “good to excellent”.

The highest overall indicator from students was a 46 percent “very good” rating for the reliability of content. The lowest overall indicator from students was a 30 percent “fair” rating for site appearance. The highest overall indicator from employees was a 55 percent “very good” rating for the reliability of performance. The lowest overall indicator from employees was a 30 percent “fair” rating for the ease of navigation.

The most visited areas of the Northland site amongst students are D2L, NetMail, eServices, cancelled class announcements, library resources, and campus events. Employees also use D2L, Webmail, and eServices, but also spend time within Virtual Office, reading college news, checking class schedules, and using policies/forms.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the survey feedback was some of the individual comments that people offered. Among the most common were that the home page was too busy and that there were too many links and listings to choose from which causes confusion. Many people indicated that they hardly use some of the secondary pages because everything they needed was buried some where on the home page. Students would also like a single sign-on feature for D2L, eServices and NetMail. Others indicated they would like to see more and newer pictures along with other site features (employee/student spotlights) on the home page and a little more use of video. Ease of navigation received a high score from students, but comments indicated they would like to see far fewer options.

There were also several suggestions for improving the ability to quickly get to information such as improving the search functionality, adding a quick or commonly used links section, improving the “audience” sites (future, current, employees, alumni, etc.) and making employee email addresses easier to find.

Thanks for the tremendous amount of feedback. We will try to consider as much as possible as we move through this re-design process.

A question that has been asked when people hear we are redesigning northlandcollege.edu is often, “Why?”

The quick answer to that question is because web communication is rapidly changing and we want to make sure that the Northland College Web experience keeps pace. Web sites are in a constant state of evolution, and over the years, northlandcollege.edu has undergone several minor face lifts as well. We decided it was time for a more substantial change that did a better job of making the site easier to use while also providing more rich content that users are now expecting.

User expectations have changed a lot since 1996 when we first launched northlandcollege.edu. (See how the home page has changed since then.)

For instance:

• More sophisticated users have higher expectations. They get online with faster computers and connections. They view northlandcollege.edu with larger monitors that show graphics in higher resolution. They also see the web as a place to interact (think Facebook and MySpace), not just to get information.
• Broadband speed is much more common. The increase in speed has meant a booming video presence on the web (think YouTube) that has lead users to expect more video from northlandcollege.edu.
• Our site traffic is way up. Many users see northlandcollege.edu simply as a tool to view grades, read campus news, schedule classes, find a faculty member, etc. We need to be able to accommodate their needs as quickly as possible.

Just as Northland College isn’t the same college it was a 10 years ago, northlandcollege.edu is evolving as well.

Planning is underway to redesign the main Northland College home page and some top-level pages. In an effort to include you in this process, we have created this blog to talk about the project, our work and our progress as we journey toward the launch of our new college “front door” on the Web.

The goal of the project is to improve the functionality, accessibility, usability and design of northlandcollege.edu. The Northland College homepage averages nearly 200,000 hits per month and represents an important opportunity to communicate Northland College’s strengths by offering information and other forms of media to a variety of audiences.

As you can imagine, the process of reworking a site as large and complex as Northland College’s will be a lengthy process. Prototypes of the possible page designs will be posted for comment and usability testing will be done throughout the process. This blog will report to the campus community regarding progress on the new site, new features, analysis statistics, usability research and opinions about the current and future site plans.

We hope this blog will be of interest to you as we work to improve the Northland College Web experience. Your feedback and comments are encouraged.

Welcome everyone to the Northland College Interactive Blog. The purpose of this blog is to keep the Northland College community and the entire world up to date on what’s new and what is upcoming on the northlandcollege.edu.