March 28, 2024

Minor Style Change Launched on the Website

On Monday, July 21, the web team launched the first of many upcoming theme changes to the .edu site designed to better align the website with the approved visual branding for the University.

An updated set of color palettes was rolled out sitewide. For the most part, the different palettes just affect the flag widgets. Other changes include changing the background color of the whole site, changing the margins between many of the sidebar features, and the removal of backgrounds, watermarks, and rounded edges on widgets.

Following is a map of the color schemes available through our Genesis -> Theme Settings area, and how they map to the palettes in the style guide:

  • University – Undergraduate Admissions palette
  • Admissions BLS – Graduate Admissions palette
  • Admissions Grad – Graduate Admissions palette
  • Admissions Undergrad – Undergraduate Admissions palette
  • College of Arts & Sciences – Undergraduate Admissions palette
  • College of Business – Graduate Admissions palette
  • College of Education – Graduate Admissions palette
  • Regional Engagement – Alumni palette
  • Giving network (regardless of “Color Scheme” selection) – Donor palette
  • Magazine network (regardless of “Color Scheme” selection) – Alumni palette

If you have any questions about this, or any other web initiatives, please email webmaster@umw.edu.

Building a Better Web

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.

Got Misspellings and Broken Links? Help is on the Way!

If you’ve seen me present to any of the faculty, staff, or administrative groups on campus you’ve probably seen the graphic below depicting broken links and spelling errors throughout the UMW website.

SiteImprove visualsThis image is from an August 2013 demo of a tool called SiteImprove.

I’m happy to announce that as of April 1, UMW has the full-fledged version of this amazing tool. As it does its job and finds website problems, we will send automated reports out to site managers campus wide. Some of you will start seeing these reports as early as May 1.

potential misspellings shown on a SiteImprove report

Potential misspellings are shown with a yellow highlight.

You will then have precise pinpointed information about problem areas of your website (see example). SiteImprove will highlight in bold visual detail any spelling errors that may exist. Yellow highlighting for potential misspellings, red highlights for confirmed misspellings.

What’s next?

The system has built a dictionary for UMW that allows us to indicate false-positives, such as acronyms, user names, and proper names. We are slowly working through upwards of 4,000 potentially misspelled words in the dictionary and will continue to hone those results.

confirmed misspelling shown on a SiteImprove report

Confirmed misspelling displayed with a flashing red highlight.

Feel free to email webmaster@umw.edu with any false positives you encounter so we can be sure to address them in a timely manner.

As users are added to the system and we start to see progress toward correcting these “low hanging fruit” issues, we will begin sending out other reports:

  • search engine optimization opportunities
  • accessibility compliance issues
  • deeper user behavior analysis
  • and more.

What does this mean to me?

SiteImprove report screen showing a broken link.

Broken links are easier to find and fix.

If you’re managing a website on umw.edu, it means you will start receiving automated reports with actionable improvements you can (and should) be making on your site. And you won’t have to go this alone! Starting in the fall, we will hold brown-bag lunches in order to provide group training and discussion sessions for site managers. But don’t wait till fall to start improving your site. Whenever you need assistance, drop us a line at webmaster@umw.edu.

How often will I get a report?

At first, once a month. If you prefer, we can increase frequency to weekly. Just email webmaster@umw.edu and we’ll make the change.

What if the report is going to the wrong person?

Just email us at webmaster@umw.edu. We’ll be happy to straighten things out.

I’m committed to making the UMW web site more viable and accessible. Remember that we’re here to provide support as you work to enhance your presence on the University’s largest public facing communications and recruiting resource.

UMW Microsite Wins CASE Awards

world readyThe UMW Digital Communications office was recently honored to receive three awards for the Admissions microsite, “World Ready,” from the Education Digital Marketing Awards and CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) District III.

The UMW entry in the Education Digital Marketing Awards competition (by the Higher Education Marketing Report) garnered both a Gold Award and a Bronze Award for the “Microsite” and “Admissions Website or Microsite,” categories respectively. These are national awards in a competition that “recognizes the best educational websites, digital content, electronic communications, mobile media and social media.”

The CASE District III award is a Special Merit Award in the category of “Electronic and Digital Media: Recruitment Website or Microsite.” The competition includes institutions in the southeastern states.

These awards represent a validation of the new, collaborative direction with the web and marketing at UMW. This project was the result of a successful team effort between Digital Communication, Marketing, the editorial staff, and Admissions.

Hackathon Supports Charity

Webmaster Curtiss Grymala and Director of Digital Communications Shelley Keith participated in an all-night “hackathon” for charity while at HighEdWeb 2013, Oct. 6 to 9, in Buffalo, N.Y. The event, in support of Ride for Roswell, had 75 participants at its peak. Information architects, content strategists, visual designers, programmers, theme developers, and WordPress experts gathered in a room from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m. to donate approximately 400 labor hours in support of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute “Ride for Roswell” website redevelopment project. Grymala was selected to lead the development team, and Keith served as project management liaison between the teams and the client to identify priorities and clarify requirements. The event was featured on local television news and in blog posts and websites.

News coverage: