The Office of Communications has begun preliminary analysis of visitor data that will be used to develop a new design for the princeton.edu website.
This week, a small percentage of visitors to the website began receiving a "popup" notice asking them to voluntarily identify themselves by category, such as undergraduate student, faculty member, prospective graduate student, job seeker, and so forth. The data from these anonymous visitors will be aggregated to determine how members of various groups use and navigate the site.
Although incremental changes have been made, the main University website has had the same basic design since 2008. The site includes news and general information about the University and its administration, campus visitor information and a student-faculty-staff directory. The main site serves as a portal to scores of other University sites.
Working with the Office of Information Technology and other offices and departments across the University, Communications staff intend to launch the new design in 2016. An advisory committee of faculty, students and staff will be formed, and University community members interested in influencing the new site will have many opportunities to be heard.
The Office of Communications has started a blog about the redesign, including sections where people can leave comments about the present site and offer suggestions and requests for the new design.
Anyone wishing to participate in the anonymous study of visitor patterns may sign up without waiting to receive the popup invitation.
