As a convenience to our mobile users, we have added a list of academic majors, programs, departments, colleges, schools, centers, and institutes. The content is broken into the following categories for easy access:
The webcams on ND.edu have always been popular features. As I write this, the Clark Memorial and South Quad webcams are both in the top 10 of the most visited pages on ND.edu. So if you’re one of those frequent webcam visitors, you can now get a mobile optimized version of the webcams page on our mobile site.
The webcam images can be rather large for mobile devices. For example, the Clark Memorial image is 704px wide. Even in landscape mode, the iPhone is only 480px wide. To better serve our users, we’re making use of a service called TinySRC that will serve a webcam image to you that is re-sized specifically for your device. If you want to view the full-size image from your device, simply select the re-sized image and it will open the original raw image.
When we redesigned the University’s website in 2007, we replaced many links in the primary content of the homepage with “Popular Sites”, a customizable list of links. Popular Sites has been quite successful (judged by the high number of clicks) and is used as a convenient homepage by many campus users.
Now, in order to better serve the University community, we’re releasing a series of browser extensions that will provide similar functionality but also be available to users no matter what site they’re currently on. These extensions will provide quick links to only those pages users want, from any point on the internet.
We’re working on extensions for several popular browsers, and the first out the door is for Safari The others will be released in the next few weeks and months.
Once you’ve downloaded the extension, you can change the default links in the toolbar, if you’d like. Here’s how:
Note: If you use Safari on Windows, you must have Quicktime installed if you want the Victory March feature to work. Download Quicktime.
Watch this blog for future releases. The Chrome extension will be announced shortly.
If you’ve lived in South Bend for more than a week, then you know how unpredictable the weather here can be. Well now if you’re on the go and need some quick stats on the current weather, we have you covered at m.nd.edu/weather. There you’ll find the current temperature and other conditions for South Bend, as well as links to mobile versions of Weather.com and Accuweather.com for extended forecasts and maps.
As always, if you have any suggestions, issues or feedback, please let us know.
Today we welcome a guest post by Julie Flory, Director of Public Relations.
Great news on the Web front – the Notre Dame home page is about to get an upgrade in order to improve usability and create new opportunities for showcasing content. We want to keep our campus communicators in the loop as we work toward a not-entirely-new (but definitely improved) ND.edu, so be sure to keep an eye on the AgencyND blog for updates.
Here in OPAC, our team has put together a yearlong, multi-phase plan to gradually incorporate into the site a number of tweaks – some small and some a bit more noticeable – but all designed to create a better user experience. After analyzing the site and considering feedback and data from the past three years, we have come up with a plan that addresses all aspects of the home page – from the global navigation to the footer and just about everything in between.
Updates will be implemented gradually over the next several months, with a goal of having all phases complete in time for the start of the 2011-12 academic year. The first visible change will be seen this month when we address the area beneath the carousel (known to some as “below the fold”) to build a more dynamic content area that will improve a number of existing features and add two new “Spotlight” sections that will highlight Notre Dame people, places and programs.
Up next will be the large top feature section known as the carousel. We are exploring a number of options for the evolution of this section and are working toward a faster, more efficient and user-friendly visitor experience with a design that incorporates the latest technology for Web content delivery. Our hope is to launch this updated section in January.
We will keep you posted on our progress and, of course, we’d love to hear from you with your feedback or suggestions. We know it’s not our site; it’s Notre Dame’s – and all of yours – and we look forward to partnering with you on this journey.
Regards,
Julie Flory, Jane Below, Chas Grundy & Don Schindler
OPAC ND.edu Leadership Team
