To celebrate the start of the academic year, the University has launched a fresh look for its central web site. From the beginning of term, visitors to the site will see a brand new home page and a new image for a lot of the information that the site contains.

To celebrate the start of the academic year, the University has launched a fresh look for its central web site. From the beginning of term, visitors to the site will see a brand new home page and a new image for a lot of the information that the site contains.

Helen Varley Sargan, the University Webmaster, explains why the new look is being introduced. "Over the last five years, the University has seen a tremendous increase in the use of its central web site. When the University started putting information online it was mainly for the benefit of the academic community. Now nearly half of the site's visitors come from outside that community, and the design of the home page is being developed to reflect this."

The University has run online services from the earliest days of the World Wide Web and its two central servers now receive over 7 million hits per month. The home page is a starting point for thousands of prospective students, researchers, business associates and funding partners as well as for staff and students already at Cambridge.

Local firm Dalmation Design were brought in to create the new look for the site. Clare Freeman, one of the company's directors, outlines their approach to the project. "We have developed an identity for the Cambridge web site that is in keeping with the University's past reputation but that also looks to its future," she said.

Whilst pages on the site may look different in October, the central web team is confident that there won't be any unnecessary changes for visitors. "We have always insisted that our pages are accessible to as many people as possible, including disabled visitors, and the new design bears that in mind," said University Offices Web Editor, Nicola Rogers. "The central web team will also be listening to comments from people who use the site and they will help us to make further improvements in the coming months."

Regular visitors will note that little of the site's content has altered due to the redesign, but all that is about to change. Plans for Michaelmas Term include improvements to information about research, new online resources for current students and further development of the news service to include a dedicated press centre for journalists. A number of University departments are now discussing using the redesign as a template for their own sites.

If you have any comments about the new design when it goes live, please email them to Helen and Nicola at: web.working.party@admin.cam.ac.uk

Image: Photodisc


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.