Update to Web Central home page

December 14, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas—It has been nearly four years since the last redesign of the university’s Web site. A project began this 2005 fall semester to improve the university’s main page and a part of the Web templates so that the Web site will better serve the university community.

With the speed at which Web technologies advance and improve, the technology behind the university’s Web site needs to be updated. In addition, it is important for the university’s new brand “What Starts Here Changes the World” to be reflected in our Web presence.

The update project began with the technology and brand changes in mind, as well as feedback collected from the university’s Web audience since the last redesign in 2002.

The changes made during this project allow the home page to dynamically communicate what makes The University of Texas at Austin a special place without sacrificing the quick and easy navigation our site affords.

Goals for the update

• Incorporate the “What Starts Here Changes the World” branding into the UT home page and Web templates.
• Bring the page up to the latest technical standards.
• Include one-click access to some of the most popular Web sites.
• Use the space on the page more effectively.
• Make the page scalable when changing font sizes.

We wanted to accomplish these goals while at the same time not affecting the usability, accessibility and load time of the home page.

Parameters for the update

• Do not increase the load time of the page.
• Keep the home page accessible.
• Stay within a five-minute adaptation time for users.

These changes apply to the university's main page and the headers in the second- and third-level templates.

We believe this update takes a giant step forward in the technology of the site while continuing to enable the university to highlight the broad range of activities, assets and opportunities on campus.

• View updated UT home page (not all links are functional)
• View updated second-level template

Note: We are aware of an anomoly in the Web browser Opera and are working to correct it. We are also aware of a bug in Netscape version 7.0x that doesn’t allow the page to display properly. If you use Netscape 7.0x, please upgrade your brower to at least 7.1.