Internal Center of Excellence Page

This is basically what the Center of Excellence template will look like:

Comments? Questions?

More to Come After Independence Day...

Early next week we will be meeting with those associated with the Centers of Excellence in Research to discuss templates and how those unique "Center" pages will look.

Other than that we're in the process of finalizing the site as it is built. Up to this point we were dealing mainly with images and mock ups designed in Photoshop, and now we've begun the process of breaking up those images into actual Web pages.

This is all being done behind the scenes and should be fully developed and ready for testing in a few weeks.

Stay tuned, and enjoy your holiday weekend!

Our Project Timelines

We're heading down the home stretch for our Web redesign project. Once we build out pages we'll begin testing, and from there we'll make tweaks here and there -- depending on user/testing input.

He is our project timeline, in case you have comments or questions (click on image for a larger view):

Final Designs

Here are our final designs, after a few more meetings and input from faculty:


Homepage

Secondary Page

Center of Excellence in Research Welcome Page

Moving Ahead with Site Development

With feedback taken into account from everything we've done to this point: the open forum, the blog, surveys, interviews, emails, and meetings -- we are moving ahead with the actual development of the new site.

The approved designs (homepage and secondary page) will be sliced and diced, as they are brought to life via the scripting of XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

That means that the designs will become interactive as we move into July. We should be able to begin alpha testing in July and beta testing in August.

If you'd like to help out with testing our new site please contact me via email or leave a comment on the blog and I will get in touch with you.

Newest Concepts & Drafts

Homepage revisions:





Secondary page concept:



Centers of Excellence concept:



What do you think?

Next Step: Open Forum, June 9, Noon-1, Room 730

Now that we have input from everyone (see prior blog post) we will make any alterations to the chosen homepage. We are also working on second and third tier page templates.

Those templates, along with a final homepage, will be revealed in an "Open Forum" on Tuesday, June 9 from 12-1 p.m. in room 730. We invite all faculty, staff, students, friends, and alumni to the forum.

We will explain a bit about our redesign process so far, show the final drafts (and get feedback), and we'll talk about next steps in the redesign process.

If we stay on schedule, we will begin alpha and beta testing in the middle of July and officially launch in the middle of August.

Please contact me (hantman@son.umaryland.edu) if you'd like to help out with testing.

The Second Survey Is Complete!

423 people took survey!

Design Preferences:

• 278 preferred the red design
• 109 preferred the yellow design
• 33 liked both designs
  

Survey Demographics:

• 110 Alumni
• 67 Current Students
• 38 Faculty Members
• 10 Friends or Donors
• 119 Other
• 33 Prospective Students
• 37 Staff Members
• 3 UM System Employees

Select Comments:

• Nice top navigation…
• The design is unlike many other websites
• Love "By the Numbers" section -- assuming facts will rotate?
• The label for the red buttons aren't consistent
• Remember, you should also include an area where ALERTS will be posted to the home page
• Apply Now ribbon items are too prominent for their station; will be utilized less than other items Very top in black frame- "Apply now" ribbon, makes it too busy What's the difference between public affairs and media?
• I would create a distinction between the Upcoming Events and Recent News
• Size of links differentiates what is most important to the site; student login should be bolder on top right permanent position
• The "buttons" under the photo make the site VERY easy to navigate
• I like that the page is not cluttered with text or pictures--everything stands out, and this makes it easy to find information on the page. I don't know about your navigation structure, but i would expect it not to be too cluttered...
• The page seems designed for 1024x768 screens, but the image still has some horizontal scrolling that I hope will not be necessary on the actual site
• My monitor is set for 1024 wide and I had to scroll to see the page
• My primary concern is that there are 4 menus to consider. The site is very clean and directed to the events and main red buttons, but the other nav (2 on top one on right) are lost because we are not expecting to look for multiple navigation menus
• I noticed that it does not fit on my monitor
• The school colors are incorporated in a cool way i would spend more time at this site
• It is very eye-catching and i really feel the need to navigate that design much more
• I like the easy to find link to Shady Grove
• Concept one is simple and efficient ,representative of the nursing professional in general
• Overall, I think this design is a fresher look and more items "pop"
• Much more aesthetically pleasing, there is better contrast between the bottom "upcoming events" part and the side tabs in grey so they are more easily found, the tabs to click on are only on the right side making the website more organized and less cluttered. The red design is overall a much better choice
• Well, for prospective students, it is easy to find where to apply
• I love it! I love the upcoming event and recent view area. I love the links to the right in gray. I love the pictures leading to news events. I really like this! Much better then the current site. And I LOVE BY THE NUMBERS!!!
• This website allows students to envision themselves in a vibrant and diverse student population. These students look like up and coming young professionals
• I like the color combination, they remind me of the school colors, the singular list of links on the right keeps the look clean
• Fresh, professional, inviting
• Holds attention with colors and layout. Seems to reach out to the reader (me). Easier to move around on the page
• Upbeat
• Innovative, easy to understand, good colors, logical formatting
• Easy to see the upcoming events and recent news
• Clarity, color, and 3 d wrap
• The "information for" section in the right hand column is better than going across the top in design 2
• 3D design – it’s awesome!!
• Very clear, clean, professional, yet gives a good visual identity of the School.
• I prefer the red background; I think it is more eye-catching. I also like the illusion that banners wrap around the white foreground.
• I like the colors and crispness of the look. I like that there are tabs for everything so that you do not have to hunt for what you are looking for.
• Seeing them side-by-by side, I realize I like having items on only one side of the photo; the yellow background concept feels more cluttered because there is something around the photo on all sides that I need (or should) pay attention too and therefore I'm not sure what to focus on
• I’d like to see a merger of both – layout from 2 with colors of 1

The Winner Is!

More to come soon....

Take the Survey & Comment on Our Architecture

THANK YOU for taking the survey, if not...

TAKE THE SURVEY
So far we've had roughly 350 people take the survey. You have until May 24. Don't delay. Visit https://nursing.umaryland.edu/cgi-bin/rws3.pl?FORM=WebsiteRedesignTwo. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to complete.

PLEASE COMMENT ON OUR SITE'S ARCHITECTURE
It is not too late to give us feedback on our new site's architecture (defined below).

We will be performing usability testing during the beta launch of the new site to make certain the new design is a vast improvement over the older site.

Until then you have the forum (here in the blog) to comment on that architecture. Please do!

Web site architecture is an approach to the design and planning of Web sites involving technical, aesthetic, and functional criteria. The focus is on the user and the user experience, with attention to usability, interaction design, and overall design.

Amazing! What a Response to Our Survey

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking our survey!

Visit http://umson.blogspot.com/2009/03/architecture-update-and-card-sorting.html to see what our new architecture will look like. Leave us a comment if you haven't already!

We've had a great response rate. So far we've had well over 300 people take the survey. If you haven't taken it -- you have until May 24. Don't delay. Visit https://nursing.umaryland.edu/cgi-bin/rws3.pl?FORM=WebsiteRedesignTwo. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to complete.

Help Us Decide on a Homepage Design

Please take a few moments to take our next Web survey.

We're looking for input on two different design concepts for a new homepage look and feel. Once we decide on a design direction we will begin developing second and third tier pages to complement the homepage selected. Yet we don't want to decide this alone -- we are counting on our community for advice.

The survey will remain open until Sunday, May 24. You can access it at:
https://nursing.umaryland.edu/cgi-bin/rws3.pl?FORM=WebsiteRedesignTwo

Next User Survey Launches Tomorrow!

We're having a busy day at the School tomorrow.


LMD Agency is formally revealing two homepage concepts to senior staff and the Web advisory board. Soon after that meeting I will be launching a second user survey to get your feedback on these designs.


The homepage designs are largely based on the first user survey, phone interviews, and feedback from past Web advisory board and other meetings with LMD.

Here's a sneak peek at the designs:



More tomorrow!

Schedule Updates

We've completed a lot of things so far in our redesign: We interviewed a diverse slice of the School's community, got input from the majority of constituents through an online survey, and we worked with our Web advisory board to settle issues around our site architecture.

And now the fun begins!

In the coming days LMD will show us Two Home Page Design Drafts, and we will post these designs online and launch a second online survey to get your input. Once we have your input we'll have an open forum around May 19 to reveal the final designs.

We will have a Beta Launch of the site towards the end of June, with usability testing to take place. Tentatively, we plan to launch the live site (given we adhere to our deadlines and production moves along) by the middle of July.

Stay tuned!

Architecture Update and Card Sorting Workshop

We had an amazing card sorting workshop yesterday during our web advisory board meeting.

Card sorting is a simple technique in usability design where a group of "users" are guided to generate a category tree or find a way of grouping items into useful bins. It is great approach for designing work-flows, menu structures, or, in this case, Web site navigation paths.

We had an idea, walking to the meeting, about how our architecture might look but we wanted to open up the conversation to our advisory board. We were very happy with the results, and the fact that our board was able to help us come to some good decisions about the overall navigation of the site.

We started by having all content grouped together in unorganized piles on one wall and asks four different groups to organize them in "buckets" along another wall. We also got some feedback as far as renaming some bucket headings. All in all, it was a fun activity, and we all learned something about how users might categorize some of our Web content.

Here's how the exercise went:

Jane, Marjorie, and Karen discuss how they might organize things:

Sandy and Rosemary discuss how to group things too. We broke our board into four groups, and each group had to figure out how to group content together on the opposite wall:

Sue is posting some notes on the wall as Jane consults with Marjorie and Karen across the room:
Once time was up we discussed the choices, and determined if we needed to shift things around -- given audience needs and general organizational ideas:

Here are the results of the board's work:

This is the full architecture: Note that there are three ways to access Web content: through user type (think demographics), task (think quick links), or by subject (our card sorting exercise was based exclusively on the subject-based way of navigating). Click to see a larger image.

Creative Brief Complete. Survey Responses Tallied.

With the Creative Brief complete, LMD is working on site architecture revisions. Here are the findings of the survey:

TOP-LINE RESEARCH FINDINGS

Public’s Perception of UMSON
Based on the interviews conducted and responses from an online questionnaire, UMSON is perceived as a solid institution among alumni, faculty/staff, and current students. Adjectives such as prestigious, challenging, forward-thinking, and inspiring were utilized to describe the school.

Although most comments were positive, a common reference to some shortcomings came to surface, particularly from the current student group.

Survey participants were asked to verbalize what they believed to be UMSON strengths. Common comments across all groups were related to excellence in education at an affordable price as well as the prestigious faculty and leadership. Valuable research opportunities also were listed as an important characteristic of the school. The fact that UMSON is ranked among the top 10 schools in the country adds an immense level of credibility and pride to be associated with UMSON across all groups.

When participants were asked to mention unique attributes about the school in comparison to other schools of nursing, national ranking, prestigious faculty, geographical location, variety of academic programs, research opportunities, and affordability were the common themes among all participants.

Public’s Perception of Current UMSON Website
Participants were asked to rate the current UMSON website on quality and organization of the information, visual design, and overall usability on a scale of 1-3, with one being excellence and 3 being poor. The average score among ~133 participants was a 2; however, the most improvement was required on the areas of usability, content organization, and visual design. Some comments from the survey include:

• "A single calendar that let us know what is happening in the SON and around the campus."
• "There are so many items in the drop-down menus. Should be fewer."
• "Reorganize links, improve the ease of navigation."
• "Update information and check accuracy. It is hard to find needed information."
• "Separate intranet and logins for student and faculty users as distinct from public."
• "Definitely highlight school ranking."
• "Add streaming videos/clips of commentaries about the strength of the programs by successful alumni in various leadership positions across the country/world in various specialties of nursing."
• "Make sure the search feature is very robust to cover all of the specialties that the school offers."

About the New Site
Survey participants visit the UMSON site an average of three to four times per week, mainly to access the Blackboard application, share drives, access the faculty and staff directory, and to keep up with relevant school news. A number of students express concern with regard to timely postings.

Participants express interest in having a highly interactive website to help improve overall communication. A few examples include adding online course listings, a centralized calendar of events, improved site search capability, links to commonly used application such as Blackboard, and SURF on the home page to facilitate access.

In addition, participants express the need for a better site architecture in order to decrease repetitiveness of information as well as facilitate site navigation. The implementation of photographs conveying the school dynamics is very important. A few examples included photos of student in clinical and academic settings, shots portraying student life on campus, and faculty student interaction. Other items such as student blogs, streaming video, and social networking were mentioned as tools that could improve communication across campus as well as connect current students and alumni with school initiatives.

Creative Brief Update

We're putting last minute edits together for the creative brief (based on our survey and interviews), and later this week I will post excerpts from that creative for comment.

Thank you for participating!

We had 124 people respond to our survey. Results will be posted soon for your commenting.

Survey Wrapping Up Sunday

Don't forget to participate in the Web survey! I'm taking it down Sunday, and will post survey results shortly.

Don't Forget to Participate!

We had a very productive week as we continue our information gathering prior to moving into wire-framing and prototyping.

Bilaal, Hector, and Mike from LMD came to the School to visit with the Web Advisory Board (representatives from across the SON community) and to meet with Administrative Council (senior staff). These were dynamic, productive meetings and those who participated were able to engage LMD with questions of audience, brand, and the like.

Our interviews are just about wrapped up as well as our online survey. Don't lose out by not participating in these preliminary questions that will provide a framework for the redesign to move forward.

Visit https://nursing.umaryland.edu/cgi-bin/rws3.pl?FORM=WebsiteRedesign to complete the survey. Your input is very valuable to us! And please distribute the survey link to others who might like to weigh in on the School's site.

Please note: The survey will be up until the beginning of February.

Here is some of LMD's work >>

Web Advisory Board Meeting 1/21/09

In attendance: Marjorie Fass, Michelle Healy, Jillian Aldebron, Kathryn Montgomery, Deborah Sherman, Karen Clark, Kathy Farnsworth, Karen McQuillan, Gail Doerr, Pat Adams, Bryan Hantman, Enjoli Sonnier, and Christine Ward.

We started with an update on redesign process, the current discovery & information gathering phase, and general timeline for the overall project. As a group, we discussed major outcomes for the redesign and of the SON Web site in general.

In addition, we discussed constituent groups: who is the web for?

We ranked prospective students, alumni, and prospective faculty as the top three groups. Other groups include:

• Donors
• Current students
• Accrediting agencies
• High school and college counselors
• Media
• Boards
• Legislators and government officials
• Preceptors / faculty associates
• Current faculty and staff
• Parents and families
• Researchers
• Professional partners
• Peers
• Lifelong learners

Web Site Redesign Questionnaire

Help us! Guide the redesign process by completing this short survey.

Visit https://nursing.umaryland.edu/cgi-bin/rws3.pl?FORM=WebsiteRedesign to complete the survey.

Your input is very valuable to us! And please distribute the survey link to others who might like to weigh in on the School's site.

Please note: The survey will be up until the beginning of February.

Interviews Underway and Advisory Board to Meet

LMD began interviewing people this week, and that process will continue until the end of January. They are interviewing alumni, current students, members of admin council (senior staff), faculty member, and other staff members. For these interviews, we will have input from the following perspectives and backgrounds:

• undergraduate students
  
• global health
  
• graduate students
• alumni
• part-time faculty at Shady Grove
• senior staff and assistant/associate deans
• full-time faculty members
  
• researchers
• administrative staff
• admissions and recruitment
  

An online survey, asking many of the same questions, will be posted on this blog later this week.

Today the Communications Advisory Board Invitation, helping the office of communications with the decision-making process, is meeting for the first time. This same committee is working on the SON magazine redesign and will also weigh in on the SON e-newsletter.

Those members are:

• Jillian Aldebron
• Karen Clark
• Hershaw Davis (BSN student)
• Marjorie Fass
• Kathy Farnsworth
• Susie Flaherty
• Laurette Hankins
• Jeffrey Johnson
• Jane Kapustin
• Karen McQuillan
• Kathy Montgomery
• Tricia Morton
• Deb Sherman
• Marisa Wilson
• Shady Grove Student (pending)
• MS Student (pending)