The Emporia State University website has come a long way since the launch of the new site in late October. We are constantly looking for improvements to implement based on usability information, analytics and feedback from our users.One of the biggest issues with websites, and web content, nowadays is accessibility. We have been focused on updating our website to make it accessible to all users, no matter their device or browser. We are proud to say that our website is currently ranked #1, in terms of accessibility, in the state of Kansas by an external reviewer. We have updated all images to include alternative text, added metadata to each page so search engines can better optimize which pages display, icons displaying an error, and more.
Another hot topic would be the user experience, or feel, of our website. We have made nine site-wide updates to make navigation through our site as natural as possible. In addition to site-wide updates, we have completed over 800 feedback requests from our 77 departmental WebDACs. We work closely with our departmental WebDACs to ensure that each department's content is correct, updated, and fresh. We have recently created a new WebDAC Portal that allows for more feedback from our web team to WebDACs and allows for better tracking per request. Before the web team moved to work remotely due to COVID-19, we had been scheduling weekly meetings with various WebDACs to receive feedback and run through their pages together. We will soon start this back up again as time allows.
In addition to being highly involved with our WebDACs, we are also working towards expanding our involvement with faculty, staff, and students! Faculty and student focused meetings are taking place to receive more feedback on the website, not just from our internal web team and WebDACs. We want to have a website where all entities of the university are comfortable, and happy, using!
Check out a list of the site-wide updates that we’ve made, and updates that are on our radar for the future, on our Web + Digital Guide! You can also learn more about our WebDAC program, and find a list of WebDACs, on our WebDAC page.
Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies
