by Paul Joly, marketing director, Shannon Sigafoos, marketing and publications department, and Digital Wave Antech Systems are teaming up to get NCC students involved in the new website design in focus groups being held on campus.
Sigafoos explains, “The idea is to show students some design ideas for the new website and to get their feedback on if they feel the new potential designs would be helpful/useful to them as students. What you may or may not like about the site design, proposing other ideas to make it better, etc.”
The new website will be aimed towards attracting new students to NCC by making the site easier to navigate and showcasing the schools activities and key attributes to create a “good feeling and easy experience” for college searchers. The new website will put a highlight on student profiles, event announcements and news features.
Paul Joly enlightens the group on how the current website is six years old and is not as flexible with technology, therefor is in need of improvement. The goal is to optimize the website so it functions better with smart phones, iPads and other up to date devices. The redesign will achieve this expansion with the use of responsive design technology in hopes of making current and future students “functional problems all go away”.
Joly explains how the redesign will affect NCC’s current students as well as forthcoming students.
“In the website redesign we will be moving any content intended for current students into the MyNCC portal and there will be a prominent one-click link to MyNCC at the top of the home page. The public website will be oriented primarily toward prospective students, their families and the broader community.”
Rebecca Cimera, a current NCC student who attended the focus group in March, describes her view on this advancement. “I think it’s great that the new website design is going to be more compatible with mobile devices. The faster we receive information the better.”
Tony Rose, Director of User Experience at Digital Wave, explains why it is important to have student feedback before making the website live. He states that the best feedback can come from students that have already been through the extensive process of searching for the right college. Web designers may have a definite opinion on what the site should look like, but sometimes the students have a better perspective from previous personal experience.
“I feel that NCC is doing itself a major service by letting students in on the website’s design process. I believe that student input is instrumental as we are the ones who will most frequently be using the website. Additionally, I feel that this is an example of how NCC pushes students to be leaders with opportunities like this,” exclaimed William Clark, a student who also attended the focus group.
The design process has been in progress for the past year and is planned to be up and running by mid-September of 2014. More focus groups are to be scheduled later this year. If anyone is interested in attending they should e-mail pjoly@nullnorthampton.edu, ssgiafoos@nullnorthampton.edu or tony.rose@nulldigitalwave.com for more information and to RSVP for the next meeting.
