Our current design has served us very well, but its 2010 aesthetics and underlying code are no longer up to current web standards. The maturation of HTML 5, CSS 3, web fonts, and responsive frameworks means that we have an incredible set of tools available to us that we're not using. Further, the rapid uptake and wide variety of mobile devices in use on our campuses means that we're not serving many of our users as well as we should. Some of you may be aware that in early 2012, Web Development attempted to outsource some responsive design, a venture that sadly failed. More than a year has passed, our site design is that much older, and we feel strongly that this work is too important to delegate to an outside firm.
As long as we've got the site up on the lift for bodywork, we're going to take the opportunity to make some improvements under the hood. Our site is slow. When you're measuring in seconds and fractions thereof, slow might seem like a relatively minor concern, but extensive research by Google and others shows that millisecond delays have a measurable impact on user engagement with web sites. We've been using a tool called PageSpeed to measure our site's performance, and have begun benchmarking it against some of our peers. We've set ourselves the goal of having the fastest library site in the CIC.
Another area where we hope to make substantial improvements is in accessibility. Our colleagues in the University's Computer Accommodations Program have begun doing regular accessibility audits of various UMN sites. We met with them recently to discuss their methods and our results, and were disappointed in the overall picture of our site's accessibility. Not only is it our duty to comply with accessibility standards, we believe that an organization dedicated to discovery and use of information should be a model for accessibility. We are working closely with CAP with the goal of setting the accessibility standard for the campus with this redesign.
"That's all well and good," you might be saying to yourself, "but what about my screenshots? What about my tutorial videos? What about my instruction materials? What about my comfortable, well-worn paths through our byzantine systems environment?" Our site's look will be changing, particularly the home page, but we're not planning on changing the site's navigational structure. The menus will look different, but they'll have the same items in the same hierarchy. No URLs will be harmed in this redesign.
Furthermore, we intend to use this space, here at ulwebdev.blogspot.com to document our work. If you look at the detailed proposal we circulated to various libraries committees, you'll note that we've set a goal of having functional prototypes in place by the end of August. These prototypes will be visible to and usable by staff and the public throughout our redesign process. You'll be able to watch the site design evolve, so nothing about the final product should be a surprise.
We're pretty excited.
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