We think it's time for a bit of a makeover...

As of next week visitors to our website will get to see our new homepage and revised design for the main site. This is part of a major redevelopment project which will ultimately lead to the site being responsive.

The old homepage

The new homepage - to be launched w/c 11 November 2013

These changes are just the first phase of the project so visitors won't notice anything too radical initially. We haven't changed the content, other than on the homepage, we are really just laying the foundations for future phases.

Why are we changing? 

In 2011 a report was commissioned from Precedent Communications to look at the effectiveness of our communications across the board and to identify areas for improvement. The website was highlighted as the area most in need of investment as the perception of external stakeholders (such as prospective students, employers and investors) was that the university looked tired and that the user experience was poor. 

Alongside this we've seen a huge increase in visitors from mobile devices so we want to make sure we offer them the best possible experience.

Since the 2011 report the team have been working with Precedent to develop a new design and in the last few months we have done a lot of work to;

• Develop a project plan so that we can launch the changes iteratively (University of York staff can view our ten phased project plan) 
• Tweak the designs to better suit our needs 
• Develop a protocol for managing the homepage (again staff can find out how we manage the homepage content) 
• Apply the design to our Content Management System (CMS) 

What's next? 

Once we have launched Phase 1 we'll set to work on Phase 2 which will start to address some issues around usability on the key landing pages. We'll also be paying close attention to the feedback we get on the new homepage as we have lots more in store for this so please do tell us what you think.