Web Redesign - Organization & Sketch

The organization of information in web sites is a major factor in determining success. We spent a large chunk of time researching and determining which organizational schemes should be used on the homepage, and what labels should be applied for each of those schemes. The result of all this becomes the primary navigation or sets of links on the site.

Because there is so much information that needs to be organized on the homepage of a university as large as ETSU, we opted to use multiple organization schemes:
- Exact (this will be the A-Z index)
- Audience Specific (links targeted to specific groups of people like "current students", "faculty/staff")
- Task Specific (these will be in the form of dropdown "quicklinks" for things like D2L and Goldmail)
- Topical (major categories of interest, such as "Academics" and "Campus Life")

these navigation systems are grouped together in different sections of the page to provide easy access to the information users need. we worked hard to come up with labels for these links that would be easy to understand and send users in the appropriate direction for information. We also planned for a block with a large rotating graphic to highlight activities and achievements at ETSU. There will be segments for news and 3 smaller blocks for highlighted events that are pulled from "PlanIt ETSU". The people/etsu search functionality will remain, with added links for social media. all this information is organized into what's called a wireframe, so that navigation and layout issues can be resolved without being distracted by design issues like colors and graphics. take a look at the sketch of the homepage layout so far (click the image to view full size):

each audience based tab will be clickable (prospective students, etc), and each main category tab will be clickable (About ETSU, Admissions, etc). We'll be posting more details about the second level pages and links for each of these pages soon.