October 1st, 2009
We’re live! This morning Duke University began hitting the “on” switches to launch the new version of its home page. Developed over the past nine months and previewed on this blog, the new version provides a fresh look for Duke’s online home. You may need to refresh your pages or empty the cache on your browser to see the new site.
A press release provides more information about the project and the launch.
The web team thanks everyone at Duke — faculty, students, staff and others — who provided feedback as we were developing the site. Your comments were invaluable, and we continue to welcome them now that the site is live.
We hope you enjoy it.
– Duke’s Web Team
Posted in Design, Development, Strategy | 10 Comments »
September 21st, 2009
There have been several questions and at least one blog post about what exactly happens when a user clicks on the Brand Bar. In a previous post on the Spotlights page a collapsed Brand Bar is shown at the top with a button to the far right marked “Search or Browse all of Duke University”.
This Brand Bar will be available via a simple include file, by request, from a link on a new Style Guide page that will be launching with the site. As mentioned before, clicking on the Brand Bar button will expand the bar and push all of the site’s content below the fold revealing several lists of static links to all of the key links, resources and tools listed on the main Duke.edu home page. I’ve placed a screen shot of this expanded view from a sample page in production below.
Click this image to expand:
An expanded Brand Bar
Posted in Design, Strategy | 4 Comments »
September 2nd, 2009
A prominent feature of the new home page is the “Spotlight” boxes that run horizontally across the top half of the screen. Nine boxes rotate through this space, each highlighting one of the university’s key themes: knowledge in service to society, learning across disciplines and so forth. When you click on one of these boxes, you go to the Spotlight page for that theme. The Spotlight page features a rich array of video, multimedia and stories, all illustrating the theme. Together, the nine Spotlights illuminate the story of what makes Duke such a special place.
Pictured here is the Spotlight page for one of the nine themes:
NOTE: This is a flat image. No actual multimedia is playable on this mockup.
Posted in Design | 4 Comments »
August 18th, 2009
While we’re waiting for the next designed pages to be ready for comment, here are some links to past Duke.edu homepages. It is always useful to look at how far we’ve come.
1997 (though probably launched earlier)
1998
2003
and our current site which went live in March 2006
Posted in Design, Strategy | 1 Comment »
July 30th, 2009
In the event of an all-campus emergency, the duke.edu site will appear with the following Alert. When posted, this Alert treatment will push all other content down on the page and remain in place until the Alert is deactivated.
New Duke Alert treatment
Posted in Design | 4 Comments »
July 16th, 2009
Regarding the Brand Bar (which, unfortunately, is not a destination nor a frozen confection), it was designed to provide Duke branding to those existing sites that do not have Duke branding and those that will soon be created. Those sites that are part of a larger cohesive identity package - like Arts and Sciences and the Services & Admin. sites - already carry Duke branding and we were consulted in their creation. It is not necessary that those sites then additionally carry the Brand Bar. The use of the Brand Bar is not mandatory.
Duke color palette and varied brand bar
Posted in Design, Strategy | No Comments »
July 15th, 2009
This new design is based on comments and feedback from current and prospective students, faculty and other members of the Duke community. It builds upon a look-and-feel established with Duke’s recent undergraduate admissions viewbooks, laying the foundation for a stronger visual identity for Duke websites generally. The site also will adhere to current web and accessibility standards. Click the image below to expand.
Home page design
Here also is a link to download the presentation given to the Duke communicators and web community attendees this morning.
Posted in Design | 27 Comments »
July 15th, 2009
Example of a typical subpage. Click the image to expand.
Academics Subpage
Posted in Design | 6 Comments »
July 15th, 2009
Example of a subpage with additional editorial content. Click the image to expand.
Content-rich Subpage
Posted in Design | 8 Comments »
