Changes will soon be implemented to the University of Notre Dame home page and insideND to improve structure and navigability, Jane Morrow, enterprise web content specialist for the Office of Public Relations, said.
Improving the login page is a main goal of the changes, Morrow said.
"We're looking to give people additional information on that page to make it a little bit easier for [users] to find resources that they're looking for," she said.
Morrow said information on the website will remain similar, but organization will be adjusted.
"The carousel causes a lot of users difficulty," she said. "We're going to replace that whole area and improve the way the information architecture is delivered so that people can access the information a lot faster, simpler and easier."
Aesthetic changes are also planned, Morrow said.
"The design is going to be adjusted a little bit to improve the look and feel," Morrow said. "The biggest debate right now is having to do with color. We still haven't gotten a decision on that."
The Office of Public Relations, Agency ND and the Office of Information Technology are gathering feedback from students, faculty and staff regarding changes to insideND through focus groups, Morrow said.
No formal decisions will be made until all feedback has been recorded, but Morrow said she is already noticing trends in responses.
"Students are pretty happy with the content that's [on insideND]," Morrow said. "I think it's going to be reorganized a little bit, and a couple of resources that were not on there are probably going to be added because students requested them."
Morrow said the Office of Public Relations consulted prospective students, in addition to current students, faculty and staff regarding changes to the University's home page.
"We're also talking to high school students to find out how they are searching for University information," she said. "We're including just about everybody we can think of."
Morrow said she hopes the changes to insideND and the University of Notre Dame home page will be as successful as those made to the Notre Dame Events Calendar website this year.
"Traffic to that site has really increased because the site offers so many calendaring options. It's so much easier for people to use than the old one," she said. "A lot more people are using it and publishing to it."
