University of Chicago Law School: The Electronic Projects Blog

The New Website is Now Live!

This morning we launched the new Law School website!

While the virtual champagne dries, the Communications office would like to extend a big thank you to all of folks who put so much effort into getting this off the ground, from our designers and developers to the folks at NSIT's Web Admin group and the many students, faculty, and staff who gave us feedback during the long and complicated process of bringing the new site to life.

Built on the flexible and robust open-source Drupal content management platform, the new site will allow staff from across the Law School to collaborate in extending the Law School's close-knit community onto the web. It encourages engagement from users by highlighting the our commitment to spirited debate, and brings to the fore our frequently updated collection of video and audio content.

The occasional bug, broken link, or misplaced file is inevitable in such a large move, so we hope you'll let us know if you find one, or if you just have comments or suggestions. You can leave comments here or on the site itself.

The Communications office is also, as a group, just beginning to unlock everything that our Drupal content-management system has to offer. As we learn the ins and outs of the system, you can expect improvements in the functionality and look-and-feel of the website.

Please let us know what you think! How can we keep improving the site?

The New Website Approacheth

As you may know, the Communications office will be launching the Law School’s new website on Thursday, June 18. The website has been completely redesigned and reorganized with usability and convenience as paramount concerns. The site is also being moved to a new, more powerful and flexible software platform that will greatly enhance our ability to engage the Law School community.

In order to ensure that the content on the new site accurately reflects that of the old site, we will be instituting a content freeze on the current site as of 3pm this Friday, June 12. This will mean that no one besides the Communications office will be able to make any changes to the Law School’s website between 3pm on 6/12 and 9am on 6/18. If you have changes that must be made during that time, please contact me (or Jenni Fry or Marsha Nagorsky if I am unavailable). If you currently have editing privileges on the Law School’s website (or would like to have such privileges), we will be announcing training sessions for use of the new software over the course of the summer.

After the launch of the new site on June 18, we ask for your help in identifying any issues, bugs, or missing content that may have gotten lost in the shuffle (due to the platform change, some web addresses [URLs] will have changed in the transition to the website’s new platform, so it’s possible that your favorites or bookmarks may need to be updated). We will provide a space for your feedback here on the Electronic Projects Blog, and we would greatly appreciate your input. While the site will be fully functional as of June 18, we expect to continue tweaking the content, organization, and appearance of the site throughout the summer, so your feedback will be vital in producing the best user experience possible.

No Fooling: The Redesigned Website is Almost Here

Last week the Communications staff got our first hands-on experience with the Law School's new website, as we received training on how to use our new content management system from our web developers at Palantir.net. The site looks great, and has now been set up on the Law School's server, clearing the way for us to begin migrating content from the current site.

While we could probably launch the new site within a matter of weeks, we've opted to be cautious with the launch. There are a lot of important events going on in spring quarter, from Admitted Students Weekend to Reunion to Graduation, and they all make heavy use of the website in order to keep people informed, register them for events, and so on. And since migrating content will require us to keep staff from making changes to certain areas of the website for up to a week, it makes sense to wait until the academic year has ended to ensure that our website's users have access to the most up-to-date information for all of the aforementioned events. As a result, we are now planning to launch the new site by the end of June. This plan also provides the added advantage of allowing extended beta testing, to ensure the best possible experience for all of our users.

We are all very excited about the new site and are looking forward to sharing it with you!

Update on the Website Redesign: Recapping the Process

It's been a while since we've updated you on the progress of the website redesign. I promise we haven't forgotten about it, and that it is moving ahead full throttle.

Redesigning a large website like that of the Law School is one of those tasks that doesn't seem all that complicated -- until you actually start doing it. So in case you're wondering just what goes into an undertaking like this (or are just wondering what the heck is taking us so long) here's a recap of the process so far.

A Course Is A Course, Of Course, Of Course

The Law School website redesign is in full swing, and we're taking a fresh look at the interface for searching and browsing courses. So we want to know: does the current interface work for you? What would you like to see changed?

Sites, Sounds, and Signs

Things are getting busy here at the Law School as we prepare for the beginning of the academic year, so I wanted to give you a few quick updates on some of the projects under way:

1) Website redesign: Our designers at Rogue Element have finished creating Photoshop documents that will serve as template for the many different types of web pages that the new site will feature. Next step: turning those templates into a functional prototype for testing and content migration.

2) Podcasts: The Law School has ordered equipment to vastly improve our recording capabilities. Featuring wireless lavalier microphones for speakers, omnidirectional audience mics, and a mixer on a movable cart, the new setup should allow us to produce high-quality recordings anywhere in the building.

3) Digital Signage: If you're in the Law School these days, you may have noticed some   strange protuberances sprouting near the elevators in the library; these are mounts for flat-panel screens that will provide up-to-the minute news and event information. Also in the works, though a bit further off, are wayfinding kiosks that will help visitors and others easily locate offices and certain library collections.

Writing for the Web: 5 Guidelines

As the Law School moves closer to our goal of a redesigned and re-engineered website, it's time for our staff to begin working on content -- creating new copy, editing existing pages, and pruning out-of-date text. While many of our staff are experienced and accomplished writers, we sometimes forget that writing for the web is different than writing for other purposes. Numerous studies have indicated that people simply read differently on the web.

To that end, I've prepared a brief set of guidelines for staff to consider as we undertake this process. These rules are synthesized from my own experiences on the web as well as from two great books: Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug and Killer Web Content by Gerry McGovern.

1. The reader comes first.

• Know your audience. Before you begin writing or editing, take a few minutes to think about who will be reading the copy you're about to work on. Will they be prospective  students? Faculty? Alumni? What will they already know about the Law School? What do you need them to know? What will they want to know? (Note that these are three very different questions.)
• Put yourself in the reader's shoes. As you are writing or editing, imagine yourself as one of those readers. Ask yourself if what you've written so far will help the reader get the information they need and/or want as efficiently as possible.
• When in doubt, borrow a fresh pair of eyes. Ask a colleague or student worker to look over your copy and point out what isn't clear at first glance. Then refine accordingly.

2. Brevity + Clarity = Good.

• Be concise. The more information on a page, the harder it is for the reader to find what he or she is looking for. Usability expert Steve Krug suggests cutting half the words you've written, then cutting in half again. While that practice might be extreme, always remember that less is more.
• Web surfers don't read -- they scan. Our eyes usually skip over long blocks of text as they try to find a relevant needle in a haystack of information. To help your visitors out:
  • Use visual anchors such as bold headings and lists, when appropriate.
  • Keep your paragraphs short and make the first sentence of each paragraph attention-grabbing and relevant to the rest of the paragraph.

3. Make your links a call to action.

• Links also serve as visual anchors. Readers' eyes gravitate quickly to links as they scan the page's content. Make that fact work for you to help them find what they're searching for. For example, which of the examples below gets you to the downloadable presentation more efficiently?

"A presentation on this topic is also available. To download the presentation, click here."

"A presentation on this topic is also available."

4. Web content is never "done."

• Remember that whatever you write will have to be maintained and kept up-to-date for a significant period of time. The only thing worse for a reader than not being able to find information is finding wrong or out-of-date information.

5. Don't reinvent the wheel.

• Does the content you're creating exist in another form somewhere else on the site, or somewhere else on the web? Why not just link to already-existing content, instead of creating more content that will require maintenance? 

I'm sure more guidelines will emerge as we go through the content-production process. Are there things that you think I've left out? As a web-reader, what bothers you about the way content is sometimes presented? What are some examples of well-done web writing?

Site Redesign: The Adventure Continues

It's been a while since we've updated you about the website redesign, but rest assured the project is still going strong. After assisting Rogue Element in the production of three distinct potential design directions, we have now chosen one. While it's not quite ready for public consumption, we're very excited about the new design -- it does a great job highlighting some of the strongest points of the Law School, especially the welcoming nature of our community and our commitment to intellectual debate.

Moving forward, we'll continue to work with Rogue Element to refine a few details, and we hope that they will soon be able to pass the designs over to our Drupal programmers, Palantir.net. Palantir will then begin constructing an interactive prototype and the Law School will begin populating the prototype with content.

Redesign Update: Meet Rogue Element

A while back, I promised to let you all know the name of the design firm that we hired to help us redesign the website, once all the i's were dotted and t's were crossed. Well, dear readers, that joyous event has occurred, and we can inform you that our design firm is Rogue Element, a small but very talented firm based on the north side of Chicago. They are now hard at work producing some initial design concepts. If you're on campus, you may have noticed them taking some elaborate photos of the Green Lounge a few weeks ago -- we're excited to see what they do with them. We've also been working with them to hammer out the site's new architecture to make it more user-friendly and intuitive.

Keep an eye on this space for further updates...

Website Redesign Survey: Current Students

As part of our website redesign efforts, we have been asking our users about their experiences with the current site. One of our methods for doing so has been an online survey, the results of which we'll be sharing on this blog.

We're in the midst of break here at the Law School, but the website redesign work goes on. Here are the results of our survey of how current students use the Law School website and what they would like to see changed:

Almost half of those who responded to our survey were current students. Of those, over half were 3Ls, while around 30% were 2Ls and 17% were 1Ls. 48% visit the site at least once a day, and another 48% at least once per week.

Here are the primary reasons they visit the site:

• To find information on courses/academic requirements: 96%
• To find contact information for students, faculty, or staff:57%
• To get career services information: 39%
• To find information on events or workshops: 35%
• To find information on financial aid: 17%

Other reasons for visiting the site include: to download papers; to link to the library website; to view School policies, faculty bios, and student group info; and to make room reservations.

All the responding students said they were generally able to accomplish their goals for visiting site. However, several respondents mentioned some difficulty (many clicks, roundabout routes) in finding what they were looking for.

When asked what the best thing about the site was, many of the students mentioned the site's use of photography and the quotes from faculty members on the home page.  One student described these as "welcoming but professional." Another strength mentioned often was the searchable course  schedules, though some respondents wanted even more detail (whether a course would require a paper or an exam, for example).

The most often cited weakness of the site was navigation that is confusing and unintuitive, along with a sense that the site projects a "stuffy," "conservative" image of a school that is anything but.