Starting this summer, visitors to N.C. State’s home page will no longer see the same site that has welcomed students, alumni and perspective students for more than four years.

After receiving feedback on its blog from more than 150 students since November, the Website Advisory Committee has confirmed the design of the home page by combining the two most popular designs: “Action” and “Your Story, Your N.C. State.”

Click here to give your take on the new Web site.

The Web site will take on engaging characteristics and content that reflect the students and their community. In addition to primary navigation, the central presence of the home page will include a large image, highlighted with a story submitted by students.

“The new Web site is outwardly focused,” Debbie Griffith, associate vice chancellor of public affairs, said. “It includes information that showcases student life. Our key goal is to show student life and develop a site that appeals to prospective students.”

Jenna Eason, a member of the Website Advisory Committee and a senior in textile technology, said she is happy with the finalized design and thinks it will cater to what visitors wanted.

“We really wanted something that drew prospective students and made people want to look at our site and make it stand out from other sites,” Eason said. “State being a school so advanced in technology, we wanted to have this new feel to it and not the archaic, classic look like a lot of sites.”

The central section of the home page will have links that revolve around seven different themes: Community of Scholars, which relates to academic excellence on campus; Innovation and Discovery, which involves research within the University; Engaging Society, which relates to the University’s outreach and extension in society; Power of Partnerships, which contains economic development information; Embracing Diversity, which revolves around diversity of the University; Outside the Classroom, which relays student life activity; and International Connections, which communicates opportunities to get involved in the global community.

For each theme, visitors will have the choice to toggle between three or four different stories and photos that relate to the theme. A static background image will also change for each category.

“We are trying to encourage people to share their own stories, whether that’s in the form of submitting stories or videos, and just telling us what you’re involved in to let other people on campus know about them,” Jason Simon, associate vice chancellor of public affairs and marketing director, said.

According to Griffith, the student stories and videos are significant to the content of the new home page.

“It really shows how we want to incorporate student life and campus life on the home page,” she said.

Simon said the story and photo content for each theme will be changed two to three times a month, and the static background image will change monthly.

“Our goal is to really have engaging content stories reflecting what students are doing on campus, what students can be involved in,” Simon said. “We’re hoping that people are going to get involved and want to share their stories and interact with the site. We are relying on people to help provide content for these stories.”

Also on the top half of the site, there will be new additions, such as links to Parents and Families, About N.C. State and Campus Life.

“The Campus Life area gives us a place at a high level to include things about student organizations, health safety and getting involved,” Simon said. “And this area is the big area that is really dramatically different.”

In addition, utility navigation at the very top of the home page will include links that visitors use the most, such as Find People, News and Events, Calendar, Search and Quick-links.

“The search will be right on the home page, and you don’t have to click to get to it,” Simon said. “That’ll be prevalent on all the interior pages too.”

Quick-links will be an area where people will have the option to form and customize their own links to things, such as Webmail, WebCT or Registration and Records.

The bottom half of the home page is used for secondary navigation where events and news headlines will be present. According to Simon, this is a flexible area where there will be spaces for “By the Numbers,” which will include random facts about the University, “Campus Tour,” through which visitors can rotate through images of the campus, and “Apply Now to N.C. State.”

There will also be utility navigation for links to a map, emergency information, contacts and jobs at N.C. State.

According to Simon, the level pages will include a depth of content where each category will have helpful links and images that are related to that content area. Simon said this area of the project is still in the developing stages.

There was a slight design change made to the Web site four years ago, according to Griffith, and there have been three or four different versions of the same Web site since 1992.

“As an alum, it’s really disappointing to hear that people aren’t hearing great stories and opportunities,” Simon said. “We really are such a big campus, and it’s hard to know what everybody’s up to and what opportunities there are to get engaged in things. So I hope this new Web site helps.”

Simon said this is the first time the Web site has had a central staff to work with it. He said there are four central staff members who are going to support and oversee the new site.

The Website Advisory Committee, comprised of 45 members, five of whom are students, received its initial Web site feedback in a survey from students and prospective groups last spring, which gave recommendations to the update and redesign of the site. It began the process with 20 designs and narrowed them down to three: “Action,” “Utilitarian” and “Your Story, Your N.C. State.” After the launch of these three designs, the committee turned to additional current and perspective students and alumni while receiving feedback on its blog.

“We’ve really taken our time, but I think it’s paid off,” Simon said. “I’ve lived with this project very closely for about a year now, and I’m really happy with where it’s going.”

Eason said the feedback the committee has received within the last year has been very helpful with the creation of the new site.