As I continue to update you about the progress of various initiatives, this week I’m delighted to share that MCC’s new website will launch next Monday, August 9! You’ll likely remember discussions about this important work in previous MCC Daily Tribune articles. Our goal was to spruce up the virtual doorway into MCC by creating a new website that captured the spark of innovation, vibrant college life, and dedication to excellence that are the hallmarks of the college.
To kick off the process, College and Community Relations benchmarked effective web designs implemented by other colleges and universities. Based on this information, the MCC team worked with consultants to create preliminary web design options. We next held forums at both the Brighton and Damon City campuses to share these “first drafts” with the college community and capture feedback. The site options were then re-designed based on input from the college community and tested with student groups to gather their input on both the visual impact and the usability of the sites. The “final draft” MCC website that you’ll see next week is the result of this highly interactive process. While it sometimes seemed that a team of hundreds were involved in the process, the majority of the heavy lifting took place in College and Community Relations and Educational Technology Services. In particular, Colleen Brennan-Barry and Sean Baker provided extraordinary leadership in the redesign efforts.
What will you see next week? The new site reflects MCC’s energy and spirit and makes incredible use of images to share the life of the college with our virtual visitors. We want to keep users coming back to the website, so images refresh and feature stories change often. In a simple but important gesture, the site also uses our college colors (black and gold) to reinforce MCC’s brand and image. The site provides more interactivity and user engagement through easier to use navigation -- in part assisted by a refined menu that defines MCC’s core audiences. Addressing the many ways our students and visitors now connect with the college, the homepage links to MCC’s burgeoning suite of social media tools (Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter). And, finally, through the redesign, we have been able to add more flexibility to include information departments find valuable -- feeds, images, galleries, videos, and more.
At this point, the new site has been redesigned through the top level pages. These new pages use strong and consistent visual elements, and all other pages have received a visual “facelift” to align their color palette and header with the “look and feel” of the top pages. It’s important to stress that no information on these pages has been changed.
Our next steps include the launch of new prospective student pages. In addition, beginning in the fall, College and Community Relations will be in contact with individual departments regarding their web pages so that they can be moved to MCC’s new web template. Longer term future projects include a mobile version of the MCC site.
So, set a reminder to check https://www.monroecc.edu/ next week and then share your thoughts of the new website on the President's Wednesday Message blog.