We are committed to creating user-centric websites that provide rich content, simple navigation, and vivid design that match and surpass industry standards.
Project Methods
There is no exact formula for every web project. We need to understand our client's needs, the problem at hand, and available resources. Our research, creative, development, and optimization methods include:
- conducting site inventories;
- audience analysis,
- benchmarking,
- organizing usability studies,
- assessing technical requirements (such as site architecture and navigation),
- writing and editing,
- web marketing,
- user-interface design, and
- URL creation.
Contact Heather Powers at webmaster@mtu.edu to request a new web project.
Web Technologies
Creating a cohesive online experience has grown increasingly difficult as user expectations and as technologies—such as smartphones, search engines, and social media—have changed.
Content Management System (CMS)
A Content Management System (CMS) is a tool used to manage content, design, and standards across multiple websites within an organization. This allows Michigan Tech departments and units to quickly and easily update their sites, share content, and follow University brand standards—allowing for a more effective and unified web presence.
A common system also allows us to make changes required to keep our websites accessible to those with disabilities or protect and improve search engine rankings from a central location.
Blogs System
The Digital Services team has created an on-brand blog system for use by departments as a way to promote news and announcements outside of the CMS. Having a central blog system requires security and template updates to be managed and applied in one location.
If you are in need of a blog for your department or program, please contact us.
Events Calendar
The Digital Services team manages an online events calendar system for use by the campus community. Events are crowdsourced—anyone can submit an event. Department event managers can set up as event admins to skip the pending queue.
Thousands of students, faculty, and staff view the events calendar each week and events automatically filter onto other Michigan Tech websites. The events calendar is a great resource to promote your campus events.
User Interface Design
Content and usability are both important for user experience (UX), and helps websites achieve their goals. At Michigan Tech's, our website has been redesigned to address navigation confusion, inconsistent user functionality, and a lack of dynamic content. We continue to perform user tests, accept feedback, and adapt to remain ahead of industry trends. Our goal is to create a site that is both intuitively usable and visually consistent.