Thursday, February 20, 1997
TECHNOLOGY:
Ease of use the main reason for revamping main websiteBy Phillip
Hong
Daily Bruin Contributor
University Relations will launch a new gateway to the UCLA
website today which they hope will reflect the diversity of the
UCLA campus, as well as highlight UCLA’s role as a world leader in
higher education.
"We wanted to make sure that we are providing the UCLA community
with an easily accessible and highly navigable site," said Michael
Stone, Director of Marketing and Communication Strategies for
University Relations. "At the same time, we also wanted to
recognize that the University has the need to reach many of its
external publics."
The original UCLA website was launched out of a joint
collaboration with the Library Information Systems and Office of
Academic Computing, known as Info UCLA, in the Spring of 1995.
The conception of the site stemmed from earlier experiments in
SGML (Standard Graphical Markup Language). The UCLA web grew
rapidly during the recent rush and boom of the world wide web with
many campus departments independently launching themselves into
cyberspace. According to University Relations, the UCLA homepage
needed to adapt to these changes.
"As the (old) site was up, and things on the web started to
evolve technically, you have to come back and take a new look and
revisit what you created. Does it still work, is it still meeting
all the needs?" commented Stone.
University Relations was assigned the daunting task of creating
a new image for a robust UCLA web, consisting of over 250 different
websites and over 50,000 web pages. Although the existing
infrastructure of the UCLA web will stay intact and untouched, the
homepage and second tier pages will be replaced with a glossier,
graphic-heavy shell with a theme that can best be described as
"Planet UCLA."
The design and implementation of the new UCLA homepage was
contracted out to local webhouse BoxTop for the sum of $100,000. By
comparison, websites promoting major motion pictures typically
range from $30,000 to $50,000.
Box Top, whose past website credits consist largely of movie
sites like "Turbulence" and studio sites like UPN, was hired to
design and code the site, as well as to provide some technical
assistance on the enhanced search engine.
With a small rotating globe branded with the UCLA logo at the
center of the page, bright neon pie-pieces that link to
second-level pages are collaged together forming the genesis of the
UCLA web, dividing the site into ten different areas: Admissions
and Student Services; Academic Programs; Health Sciences;
Athletics; Campus Resources; Libraries, Museums and the Arts;
Alumni and Friends; Continuing Education; International Programs;
and Research.
Second-level pages provide hotlinks to specific UCLA websites
within each topic.
In addition, secondary pages serve to bring out information that
may be otherwise buried in the UCLA web through "Did You Know"
factoids, and brief headlines at the top of each page. University
Relations said that one of its primary responsibilities in
providing regular maintenance to this site is keeping these facts
and headlines fresh.
"We have to be a link and get out there and talk to people and
see about making sure that we bring some of the best of what’s in
this site for prominent view," said Stone.
Nick Senton, an independent web developer whose credits include
the websites for "Independence Day," and "Fox Kids," critiqued the
development of the new site. "The main reason you redesign a site
is to bring out existing information. The new UCLA homepage seems
to be a good jumping off point  however, the second-level
pages still seem to be as cluttered as the existing site," said
Senton.
"As a new visitor to the site, it would still be difficult for
me to find anything."
However, in addition to reworking the navigation of the UCLA
web, the new front-end also includes an enhanced search engine.
"We’ve increased the search abilities as well. We’ve added a key
word search," said Adam Hagen, project manager of the new UCLA
gateway.
"We’ve tagged each of the 250 sites with anywhere from five to
seventy keywords that help describe that site. So, for our external
audience that isn’t familiar with our particular lingo or language,
it can help them zero in on a particular site a little easier," he
added.
A major addition to the revamped gateway is an interactive
feature: "Welcome to UCLA." Linked off both the masthead of the
homepage, and the animated "Explore" button, "Welcome to UCLA"
should attract a great amount of traffic, said University
Relations.
"What this site (Welcome to UCLA) is meant to do is not only
provide some basic information, like directions, parking, and
weather, but also to provide some fun things," said Hagan.
The "Welcome to UCLA" page displays an illustration of the UCLA
campus with links to five different virtual tours of UCLA, a
message from the chancellor, interactive postcards, a coffeehouse
online forum, a shockwave game, and a quicktime UCLA
commercial.
A special feature that won’t be available at launch time is an
interactive art gallery where students, and UCLA enthusiasts can
post artwork. Hagen said he hopes that this new dynamic image will
attract future students to UCLA.
"Lots of prospective students are shopping for colleges and
universities on the web, and lots of time they will make decisions
based on the amount of information that’s accessible on the
college’s website. We wanted to make sure that we were leading the
way with that kind of information," said Hagen.
The entire task of revamping UCLA’s online image on the web was
completed over a series of phases starting in the Spring of last
year, beginning with the conception phase.
Stone said that during conception, those involved with the new
site met with a variety of university groups, trying to "get input
and perspectives on where people were going with their own
individual sites, and how this (homepage) could best serve as a
front door."
Ultimately, a core team was formed to steer the development of
the site, led by Jon Cabarro and consisting of Michael Stone and
Adam Hagen, Michael Trentalonge, Executive Director Information and
Gift Policy, and Kurt Yamamot, Application Specialist of Finance
and Information Management, as well as veterans of the original
Info UCLA website Kent J. Wada and Michael Van Norman.
On January 17th, just a few weeks prior to completion of the
project, Jon Cabarro resigned from his position at the University,
so the project was then taken over by Michael Stone,who carried the
project to its final release date of February 20th.
However, Stone said he feels that the site will never truly be
finished.
"We’re not really doing our jobs if every day we’re not looking
at it, thinking, about what can we change, how can we improve this,
who can we talk to around the campus to make it better," he
said.
BoxTop webhouse
The new UCLA website, available starting today, is a revamping
of the original 1995 website for easier access and navigation.