Ready to redesign your school’s homepage?  We’ve got boatload of tips & tricks based on our observations of the better-designed US university websites.  Brace yourselves, because you’re about to experience an explosion of:

• Seven University Homepage Tips
• Five Design ‘Spoilers’
• FREE PSD template for your designing pleasure

To  illustrate our points we’ll be using the homepage for University of Val Verde, a  fictional institution  that would have existed in the the 80’s blockbuster action-flick, COMMANDO, starring  Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I had to shrink the image down to fit the  blog area,  so click on the image for a bigger view.  I’ll wait here. GO! DO EET NOW!!

Oh and any resemblance to a North Carolina-based public institution of higher learning is strictly intentional. In fact, the whole template is based on the forthcoming redesign of unc.edu. This post is a tribute to the hard working men and women working to bring you a better homepage. But I also like Schwarzenegger flicks, so I’m gonna slap some action-movie stuff on it.

Apply Today! Your application will be mailed to you.. in pieces.

1. Show Off

Also ranked #1 Spring Break Destination for moustached super-villians

Boast about your university’s latest accomplishments! This will attract prospective students & inspire alumni to donate to your institution. Speaking of which..

2. Provide an Easy way to Donate

You the best thing I like about this school? THE PRICE.

Let’s face it, sometimes your alumni will miss your constant newsletters, emails, phone-calls & spaghetti dinners. Give them yet another chance to donate by providing a prominent donation button on the main page.

3. Deep Navigation

2016 Olympic hopefuls

When you design for any giant entity like a university, you just KNOW everyone will want a piece of the homepage. It’s prime real estate. It’s of course impossible to have EVERY department represented on the homepage, but you can provide links to the general department and allow the user to navigate his or her way through. Just make sure the sub-pages are layered logically. For instance: athletics>  men’s sports > winter sports > spring-board lawn diving team

4. Big Scannable Blocks

Canceled? Oh good, now I have time to attend my 7:30 Karate class

If you’re designing a homepage for a gigantic organization, be prepared to serve a diverse audience: prospective students, sports enthusiasts, researchers, alumni, job-seekers, one man armies that will stop at nothing to rescue his daughter from the clutches of a Freddie Mercury stunt-double.  Therefore, you’ll want want to cluster information in neatly organized, scannable blocks. Ok, firefox’s auto-spell check is telling me ’scannable’ isn’t a real word, but I promise the concept is real. Basically, your users should be able to look up and down the page and find what they want with minimal cognitive activity.

5. Get Visitors Involved! ( TOTALLY OPTIONAL)

"YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO UPDATE OUR MYSPACE PAGE"

I was gonna leave this one off the list, but I figured I should include it since a lot of schools are doing it now. Plus 7 is a nicer number for a list.  Anyways, throw in some hip cutting edge ways to connect with your university by setting up official pages on trendy websites.  Again, it’s optional and I wouldn’t make this a priority unless the El Presidente demands it at gun point.

6.FAQ’s and Technical Details in the Footer

Some visitors will want just the cold hard facts: What is the university phone number? Where is IT services building? Where is the president’s secret underground lair/furnace room?

7. Search Box

Whut's Een Dis?

Some users don’t want to be bothered with fancy navigation. Just give ‘em a search box.

Fantastic! By now you’re ready to revamp your school’s homepage. If you like surprises, stop reading now. If you’d like to know what lies ahead of you, read the spoilers below.

Caucasian, Latin, Austrian, African-American & Flaming Homosexual

SPOILER ALERTS:

• Not everyone’s gonna be happy- compromise, you’re gonna compromise… a lot.
• Someone WILL ask to make the school logo bigger. Deny them referencing university standards,  universally accepted design laws & showing them other school’s pages
• Unless you’re some crazy artsy school, you MUST portray your university homepage like a credible institution (no giant pictures of grenades, sorry).
• You’ll always have a ton of links, no matter what.
• Stock images must contain representatives of every major ethnic group
• The department with the most $ gets higher priority

Val Verde University PSD File (8.5 mb)

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