University and Union websites refreshed

Last week saw both the Warwick Insite and the Students’ Union websites overhauled, with new designs and features geared towards simplicity and ease of use.

Warwicksu.com now boasts an interactive calendar on the homepage, showing what is on across all societies and Union departments. A new ‘Today’ section summarises the day’s events and has a refined search box, which makes it easier to find relevant content quickly.

Student media is also better represented, with direct links to the _Boar_, Warwick TV and RaW websites and their recent posts. The Democracy, Campaigns and Advice sections have all received some tweaking, and the whole site has been re-engineered to remain consistent, whether the user is signed in or not.

This directly addresses criticism that the previous website was too disjointed and confusing to navigate. During Week 10’s Rant Week, many students took the opportunity to voice their concerns with the old design. David Henry, a first-year Politics student, agreed that “It just always felt badly designed and temperamental; I could never find what I was looking for and often ended up on the wrong page.”

Chris Luck, the Democracy and Communications Officer, is hopeful that the greater involvement of societies and the integration of the interactive calendar will ensure the site remains current and useful. He explained that: “The online calendar and today feature are a huge improvement. As a student I was always frustrated by the out-of-date content, but this is a lot better.”

Changes to the Warwick Insite are less dramatic, focusing on reorganising the external homepage and the ‘Study’ homepage for prospective students. Both sport a slick graphic interface, moving away from the ‘directory’ style which had been in place since 2007. The new pages focus on more story-driven content to showcase the University’s recent activity.

Vice Chancellor, Professor Nigel Thrift, explains that the homepage is “arguably the most important page on our website where many of our external stakeholders form their initial perceptions of the University”. It is hoped that the new style will eventually be extended to the rest of the website if it proves successful.

Thomas Kendall, a second-year Maths and Philosophy student, commented that: “It certainly looks very nice, but I am worried that it is just an aesthetic change to lure in prospective students. The University needs to focus on providing equally innovative content to match the redesign if it is to be worthwhile.”