The Redesign of olemiss.edu

Background

The university’s official website, olemiss.edu, is the primary destination for online visitors seeking information about the university. It functions as the brand site, and was last redesigned in 2013, at which time more than 300 subdomains migrated content to a brand template on the WordPress content management system. In summer 2020, a steering committee comprised of staff members in University Marketing & Communications and Information Technology drafted a request for proposals to identify an agency to work collaboratively with the university to redesign and build a modern, fully accessible olemiss.edu website with engaging and dynamic content. In addition to the redesign work, the university seeks to establish a robust and agile web governance model that enables university staff to manage the creation of content, data, and insights more effectively and sustainably across the .edu.

We invite you to visit our updates section as the work progresses on this important project.

Our Goals

The university expects the following items to be delivered upon completion of this process:

Data-Driven Discovery – User research, usability testing, and technical audit on current site to define audiences and goals and determine appropriate information architecture to deliver user-centered design.

Accessibility as a Standard – The site and all affiliated pages will adhere to the principles of “Universal Design” and Level AA compliance with WCAG 2.0.

Brand Adherence – A mobile-first, responsive, branded digital user experience based on information architecture that upholds the brand platform and design standards.

Necessary Integrations – The final product must be built in a way to allow for appropriate integrations with SIS, CRM and CMS solutions.

Flexible Design – A family of flexible, responsive page template design options that may include but are not limited to: variety of content blocks, custom menus, consistent navigation and sub-navigation menus, headers and footers, and interactive and dynamic elements. Navigation should flow seamlessly from site to site allowing for flexibility and variety in website design.

Clear Plan for Implementation and Migration Services – A clear timeline for redesign implementation and content migration to new CMS.

Clearly Defined Data Infrastructure and SEO Strategy – University to deploy site-wide Google Analytics hierarchy and model for excellence as well as clearly articulated SEO strategy to optimize content across .edu.

Training – Site administrators, as well as website content creators, will be trained to understand, apply and adhere to a web governance approach to ensure successful adoption of new processes and procedures and future enhancements.