Goals and Current State

Our current CHSSWeb design has been in place since 2018 and is showing its age. We are working on a refreshed design, with two main goals:

  • Quickly modernize our design, addressing some longstanding concerns
  • Minimal work for the owners and editors of these sites

This gives us some firm boundaries for this effort. We have many ideas and many things on our to-do list that will not be included in this effort because they include changes which would create work for you.

Do not let that hold you back from talking about your ideas and wishes. Through your site's designated contacts, we have invited you to participate in this effort, and we welcome your input. But please work with us to keep this effort tightly focused on those two goals. We will keep track of the good ideas that do not fit into this effort but which are worth pursuing once we have completed this limited design update.

The state of the design

At present, the home page is the only piece that is completely ready for review. All of the key design elements are represented there and we have done a top-to-bottom overhaul of that page. You can browse internal pages (like this one) of course, but you may run into things that are not quite right or pieces we intend to redesign as part of this project.

For instance, we plan to redesign the left-hand navigation you see on this page. We intend to use more of the available screen width. We have not reviewed the sidebars or spacing. There's a good deal of work to do, so please focus on the home page.

This site uses placeholder content rather than real site content. We hope this will help us review and discuss the design without focusing on content changes that will not be affected by the design. We will also give you a way to preview the design on your sites with your actual content.

The example marquee image will become three separate clickable profiles in one slide, featuring a student/faculty/alumni profile. We are working on gathering student/faculty/alumni profiles to feature on the unit homepages (example English will feature an English student/English faculty/English alumni), please let us know if you have any content to share with us.

The marquee is being repurposed to tell the college to career story that targets several audience members (prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni and donors). These stories will be updated on a regular basis on the CHSS homepage, which keeps the content fresh, engaging, and helps with our SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

During this effort, please continue managing your sites. Please reach out to us if you want our help working on any aspect of your existing site. That work will be valuable in your current design and it will be equally value when your site is in the updated design.

Thank you for your interest, your ideas, and your support. Please contact the CHSSWeb team if you have any questions.

New Marquee
New Marquee