“The recent website that we had was built in 2010. It had over 440,000 pages on our old website which made it really difficult for students to navigate some of it,” said Jordan Milan.
Out with the old and in with the new website. The University of Wisconsin-Superior’s website notably had a huge redesign update. Condensing down the 44,000 pages into the roughly 600-page layout.
Website redesign started in 2022, and first launched on June 15, 2023. Associate to the Vice Chancellor Jordan Milan took on the role of project team lead. She brought the concept to life through the help of a third-party advertising agency.
“We worked with an outside firm called KW2 out of Madison. We also worked with technology services here and virtually every department here on campus to get content layout,” said Milan.
Alongside with KW2, Milan was able to break down how students actually navigated the old uwsuper.edu website. From there the agency helped organize the modern design, choosing font-types and color schemes.
“We started with different discovery sessions with key groups on campus, did some user testing with prospective students as well as current students to then determine a new site architect,” said Milan.
The focus for the redesign was to provide an updated feel that properly represented UW-Superior and helped ease student navigation. But some even with the new, some students find the new website capable of some featuring some bugs.
“It’s not perfect, but I think it’s better than nothing at all obviously. It’s sometimes convenient, but I had some a couple issues here and there, but otherwise I had a pretty good experience with it.”
“Just in the week of welcome I had a few issues with it, but other than that I hadn’t had much problems with it,” said Freshman Jasen Bruzek.
“I think we’re around 80% fewer pages than before, it just really helps students find what they need easier, and faster, just an overall better user experience,” said Milan.
The website now highlights some of the university’s achievements like our athletic programs, campus enrollment, and international students’ population rate. But the newest additions to the website were the improvement of our university’s search engine optimization (SEO). Kalee Maynard was brought onto the project after the website’s launch, she worked on improving the analytics bringing our campus’ more into the digital spotlight.
“At least with the analytics that we have, our impressions have tripled since this time last year. We have double the clicks onto our site. And we’re hitting that position zero on search engines,” said Maynard. This year we hit 32,500 top zero spots, but last year it was 12. So, google really likes what it sees and it’s ranking us higher so students can see us.”
“So, if someone searches UW-Superior into google, we’re actually showing up,” said Milan.
“Or if something more broad like college in Minnesota or Wisconsin,” said Maynard.
Since launch, the new uwsuper.edu website has only improved upon its overall student experience and launch. But overtime, the website will only be improved as more people both near and far from campus use it.
“Like any website is a living, breathing thing now and it’s really going to continue to get better as we analyze the analytics and see where we are hitting some problem areas,” said Maynard. “We’re always looking to where we can grow and make that experience better for students and see if they’re finding everything they need.”
