Pictured above: A screen capture from WashU Olin’s website from 20 years ago, on March 31, 2003, courtesy of the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine.” Below: A screenshot from March 23, 2023.
Every year, WashU Olin’s website serves as the “front door” to more than 3 million prospective students, alumni and corporate friends. As such, it’s imperative to not only have a clean, vibrant, current website but to be current on website technologies like search engine optimization (SEO), usability and effective navigation—so visitors quickly find what they need.
After more than 13 years of using our current website—built on Microsoft SharePoint—we are overhauling our online home, building it on a higher education industry-leading platform called Cascade.
All of our great content will still be available to our website visitors. This overhaul is all about starting fresh, with a modern, branded look, providing intuitive navigation and amplifying our storytelling. Here are the top five things we are particularly excited about:
- Mobile-friendly design: More than half of our guests come to our site on their cellphones. We must ensure a great mobile experience. Also—fun bonus fact!—being mobile-friendly is a major driver of successful SEO.
- Up-to-date navigation: 13 years of accommodating new programs and other requests take a toll on a sound, user-centric navigation. Every page on the new site will be placed exactly where it should be, with user testing to back it up.
- Better student and faculty spotlights: Prospects want to know what it’s like to be a student at Olin … and who will teach them. Our new website answers this call.
- A reimagined news, blog, research and media center: We’ve come a long way in telling our school’s story. This new website will accommodate and amplify our voice.
- Cloud-based and vendor-supported: Moving to the Cascade CMS removes most of the risk of our site going down or ending up with outdated elements that need heavy technical development support.
Be on the lookout for our April update. We’ll cover how we got here, reviewing our year-long discovery process.
