BY IAN YARETT

In print | March 2, 2006

The college will transition to a newly redesigned college Web site by mid-April, according to Associate Director of Academic Computing Erik Behrens. A sneak preview and discussion of the new site held by Behrens last Tuesday allowed students to offer feedback on the new design.

According to Behrens, the new site will be launched internally on April 3 so students and faculty will have the opportunity to use the site and suggest changes before it is made available to the public on April 17. Along with the college’s home page, significant revisions will also be made to the student portal.

Behrens explained that the site was not being revamped because the current one is “bad,” but rather because the Web site has had the same look for over four years and was in need of a change.

While the look and feel of the new site has changed significantly, Behrens believes that the college’s image will remain intact. “We greet people with content, where the sites of other schools hit you really hard with marketing, and we don’t want this to change,” he said. “If you’re going to come to Swarthmore, you’re going to be a reader.”

The new site will feature a photographic slideshow that will showcase activities at Swarthmore. Instead of the Swarthmore logo, the masthead on the site has been made “less letter-heavy” and now includes a view of the amphitheatre.

The new site has exchanged the garnet color scheme for a warmer color palette with a light yellowish and green background. A more user-friendly news and events page is also being prepared to replace the weekly news portal, although that aspect of the site will not be ready for the April 17 debut of the new homepage.

The new student portal will now be called the “student dashboard,” including only the most popular features and links of those now found on the student portal. It will likely also include transportation information, Sharples menus and information from the Dean’s office.

According to Behrens, the total expenditures over the past two years on the design, software, consulting and implementation of the new Web site has totalled approximately $150,000.

One of the most common complaints voiced by students at Tuesday’s meeting was in regards to the background color of the homepage. Michael Gorbach ’08 was one of the students opposed to the color choice, though he thought the new design was generally good.

“The design of the site was pretty nice except for the background color, which I really didn’t like very much,” he said. “However, it seemed like they put a good amount of thought into it and it was pretty well done.”

Myrt Westphal, Dean for Student Life, said that her greatest complaint about the new homepage has now become one of its positive features. “Originally, student life wasn’t listed on the homepage, but it will now be added to the links at the top of the page,” she said.

According to Kelly Mueller, a member of the Web site design committee, students are invited to view and give feedback on the prototypes of the new homepage and student portal at http://www.swarthmore.edu/feedback/.

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