Though you wouldn’t know it from our social media neglect, we over here at the web team have been busy in the last two years since this blog was updated. We’ve moved offices to 1002 Andersen, where we have a lovely view of the parking lot and a bookcase that desperately needs filling. We’ve had some staffing changes and taken on a few pretty big projects – so here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to.

As mentioned in a previous post, we were kind of pushed into the project that has become one of our largest efforts of the past year. When our previous CMS software Collage ended development, we settled on a new CMS called Ingeniux and began the transition process. It’s been a worthwhile change, but a long process as well. The University’s 20,000 (yup, that’s right) web pages are under a complete redesign to present a more unified feel and the whole transition won’t be complete for another year. But for those of you who remember the old sites, just take a look at the new homepage, College of Letters and Science page and other main pages to see a few examples of how the new system is changing our look.

(Check out this page for more information on the project and a way to track our progress.)

We’ve also recently made great strides toward a mobile-supported web presence. In April of this year we launched our first “responsive” websites. Responsive design is a way to develop sites that automatically rearranges the content based on screen size – someone viewing our site on a desktop monitor will have a different experience from someone viewing the same site on a tablet, but both will see the same content. Try resizing your browser window to see this technology in action. Today, most of the sites in Ingeniux are responsive.

Going responsive means we can continue to provide our same web experience across all devices, though mobile users are now directed first to the mobile landing page we’ve developed (m.uww.edu) for a simplified view of the home page and some quick-links to the most popular pages.

Mobile traffic is still fairly low – about 7.5 percent – but we’re expecting that number to double each year. This year is already proving that expectation to be realistic – unique mobile visits are up 190 percent this year from last year.

So that’s some of how we’ve been filling our days – check back here for updates as more campus sites get a new look, a riveting treatise on the finer points of search engine optimization, and the gradual progress of our currently empty bookcase!