On Feb. 26, 2018, President Williams sent out an email to students, faculty and staff announcing that a major redesign of the Muhlenberg College website was set to go live in early 2019.
The most recent update to the process — the indication that the project was officially underway — was posted on the official blog for the redesign on Apr. 11.
“The Muhlenberg website dates back to at least the mid 1990’s — perhaps earlier. Over the years the site has undergone many design changes,” explained Bill Keller, executive director of communications. “Our most recent major change took place in 2016 and featured some welcome updates, like a focus on larger images and a mobile-responsive design.”
The decision to enhance the website since its last redesign was a collaborative effort between the president’s office, admissions, information technology, advancement and communications, just to name a few.
While the actual website redesign was a more recent commitment. “Parts of this process started well before we decided to embark on a web design process. Our communications strategy, for example, has been in place for nearly two years,” said Keller.
One of the major components of the decision-making process was choosing a design partner — which led to the partnership with FastSpot.
FastSpot is an award-winning design firm that has worked with an abundance of other collegiate institutions.
“FastSpot also has an excellent track record of assuring that websites meet the needs of users with disabilities, which is important to us,” noted President Williams in his initial email.
As for specific details about the expectations for the new website, there is not a lot to share yet; however, there are certain goals that have been set.
“We can say that we’re approaching our new website with the intent of making the sense of community, academics, social life and space more transparent for visitors,” said Keller. “We’re also expecting to fully utilized compelling photographs, video, social media and storytelling using the framework and design of the new site.”
The target audience for the website will continue to be prospective students and their families.
While the website may be attracting the eyes of incoming Muhlenberg students, members of the college community that are already here definitely are being valued in the process as well. It is for that reason that the redesign team decided to launch the blog that will keep everybody in the loop on the progress.
“We’re committed to keeping our community informed and involved,” said Keller.
“We’re planning to host several sessions to share progress and to solicit feedback from our community,” Keller also added, “We have a lot of work to do before FastSpot can work with us to share design concepts, but students will have opportunities to participate in those listening sessions.”
