Several weeks ago, nearly 50 administrators, faculty, and staff from throughout UMW volunteered their time on nearly no notice to support the University’s web content strategy initiative being undertaken by the offices of Digital Communications and University Relations. These stakeholder meetings held over two days in May gave us some incredibly useful insights into the needs and goals facing content managers institution-wide. That information, and the outcome of a multi-disciplinary messaging workshop held during that time, formed the basis for a great deal of work currently in process to support strategic improvements to the quality and value of the UMW website.
Our most recent results are from a nearly 600 page content audit performed by our content strategy consultant, Rick Allen of ePublishMedia. The audit findings will be used to:
- Ensure web content has a clear and appropriate target audience
- Improve website information architecture
- Better support the University’s communications goals
- Enable web way-finding by providing more valuable, relevant links
- Diversify types of content to more effectively engage audiences
In short, this process is giving us insights and quantitative data we can use to inform training and support. Shortly after the beginning of the fall semester, you will hear from us about ways we plan to help content contributors throughout UMW build more effective websites for their departments, programs, and initiatives.
If you have questions about this or any other digital communications initiative, please contact Shelley Keith, Director of Digital Communications, at tkeith@umw.edu.
This is such an important and necessary process. Thanks so much, Shelley, for getting us started and keeping us updated.