Students who have gone online to register for classes recently may have noticed some changes. The Cal State Long Beach Web site has been revamped once again. The new site was launched on Jan. 21.
Doug Cox, the university webmaster and director of New Media Communications, was in charge of the project and was responsible for making the site work.
“The old site was obsolete in terms of both information architecture and in the way it worked with contemporary technology, such as PDAs,” Cox said. “What made sense back in 2003 [when the last site was launched] didn’t work in 2006.”
The Web site has gone through many changes including a new look and format, a more concise and easy-to-use front page and fewer links to allow faster use for students.
“The old site – and a number of other remaining campus sites – were nowhere near being in compliance with federal, state and CSU regulations, requiring that all of the online information is accessible to persons with disabilities,” Cox said.
To find inspiration for the new design, Cox and his group looked at many university sites across the country.
“We looked at hundreds of U.S. and international higher education Web sites for layout, color, language and content grouping. President Alexander was terrific, too, pointing out to us the sites he liked and why,” Cox said.
Alexander wanted the site launched a week before students returned for the spring 2007 semester to minimize adjustment time, Cox said .
Jorge Hurtado, art designer for the Web site, has been working on it for more than three years with various faculty across campus in an attempt to improve it.
“The process for the templates has been going on for years,” Hurtado said. “The new site is the result of the whole university working together to fix the problems of the previous site.”
Anita Mey, a social work major, was unaware that the Web site was even redone.
“The old site was fine. I thought things were easy to find and never had a problem with it,” Mey said.
Along with all of the positive changes, there may be negative effects to the new Web site that students will have to discover on their own.
“There are a lot of 44 errors, meaning when you click to a page it comes up blank,” Liz Roberts, a senior English major, said. “But the new site is definitely simpler to use. The last site was too wordy.”
