Web and Media Services has been making incremental improvements to poly.edu since it launched the new site in September 2009. Over the past months, we've made more substantial changes, starting with a new home page. Below is a review of what we've done so far and what we plan to improve.
Our goal with changes big and small is to make the site easier to use (user feedback helps us decide where to focus our efforts), keep the site looking fresh (a year can be a long time in web time), and showcase the academics, research, and people that make us who we are (content, content, content).
Improvements So Far
Homepage
- Featured content: important news, events, research, and programs get special treatment with magazine-style imagery and headlines
- Events: now you can see this week’s events as well as upcoming, high-profile events in one spot
- Headlines: news and press releases mingle in one “headlines” section so you don’t miss anything
- Login: moved to the bottom of the screen to free up space at the top
Navigation
- Quicklinks: a dropdown on the homepage of frequently-visited pages makes it easier to get to where you want to go
- One-level global menu: the elimination of flyouts to second-level menus makes the global menu less cumbersome
- Multi-level local menu: the left-hand menu on pages now shows pages above and below the page you’re on so you have a fuller view of related content and can get to it quickly
Multimedia
- Galleries and video: a new video player and a sleeker gallery tell stories better
Profiles
We’ll no longer be offering profiles for non-NYU-Poly visitors. Why? Building a social network on poly.edu (the original intention for having outside users create profiles) proved to be 1. Out of the scope of what the site needs to do; 2. Unnecessary. Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. do a better job than we could ever do and users seem to prefer those platforms.
Faculty and staff will still have profiles on poly.edu. In fact, we’ll be working to make those profiles even better.
Planned Improvements
- Search: easier to filter, i.e., narrow results to people, course descriptions, news, or whatever you’re looking for
- Design: “landing pages,” i.e., main section pages like Departments and Alumni, will be redesigned to highlight important content and match the look and feel of the rest of the site
- Profiles: better presentation, especially in search results, making it quicker to find faculty by research interests, or to find their contact information
- Courses: improved description displays and more related information, e.g., room location, semester offered
Feedback
Let us know about the changes we’ve made/will make: support@webteam.poly.edu