Web Services and the Department of University Communications (DUC) have been hard at work developing a new Carleton home page. This past Thursday, we hosted an event to give the Carleton community a sneak peek at what the new home page will look like!
Don Cumming from DUC kicked things off by sharing some background information about the project.
Before diving into development, we spent time looking at the home page analytics to see how our visitors interact with the site. We looked at user behaviour and needs, while also factoring in best practices and current web trends.
The Many Faces of Carleton.ca
Danny Brown took us on a trip down memory lane. He showed us the many iterations of the Carleton home page starting from 1996. And wow, has it changed!
Have a look at the gallery below to see just how much the Carleton home page has evolved over the years.
Carleton Home Page: 1996-Present
New Home Page Features
Carleton.ca sees over 100,000 visitors each month and is the entry point for many first time visitors. First impressions matter and web technology changes at a very fast pace. For these reasons, the Carleton home page gets a refresh every few years.
We were super excited to showcase some of the new features of the Carleton home page. These include:
- A brighter look and feel
- Search bar at the top in order to allow for easy search along with unobstructed banner images
- Removal of tabs so that important information is front and center (no longer need to click to see it)
- A prominent Instagram feed
- New content focus including “Spotlight on” important events and Carleton News
Thank you so much to everyone who attended our home page kickoff event!
Carleton’s New Home Page: Coming Soon …
Watch for the new Carleton.ca home page available for preview off the current homepage soon!
Until then…here it is!
