The website redesign core team has made significant progress in improving accessibility, usability, and the overall student experience. The sitemap, a key structural element, is being refined to better meet the college’s needs. The BC Pathways website has been launched to help students navigate class preparation and registration, with more features coming soon.
Our website redesign vendor and core team have realized some milestones over the past couple months that we’d like to apprise you of.
If you’ll recall, the main goal of our teams has been to increase accessibility and usability, provide a consistent experience across core areas of the student journey, and implement the Guided Pathways methodology, all while significantly improving the site’s look and feel. In the time since my last update, our vendor has narrowed (and continues to narrow) the scope of their proposed sitemap to better accommodate our needs. As it is the foundation by which the entire website is organized, the sitemap is under constant scrutiny by our core team. Changes to site locations are something we’ve anticipated, and we’ll likely experience further adjustments to the structure in the coming months.
A creative kickoff helped identify, among other things, our publishing process as a key area of improvement. Establishing brand and style guidelines, an editorial calendar, regular content reviews, and standards for complete and proper formatting will be imperative to maintaining the renovated site, post-launch. How content is promoted is also being explored: as the line between social media and communication methods narrows, more attention will need to be given to the audience, timing, and “cross-pollination” of any given update.
In the past month, we’ve achieved the goal of publishing the BC Pathways website (https://www.bellevuecollege.edu/pathways), with a homepage module to be added later this week. The purpose of BC Pathways is to provide users with plain language guidance in the preparation for and registration of classes– giving students the support they need by closing equity gaps and creating a more intentional experience online. The experience will improve as more content is added; we’re introducing the module now to familiarize visitors with the tool, and to prepare people for when the complete website is published.
Development of the website redesign is ongoing, and we anticipate movement to increase towards year end– a significant undertaking considering that it’s taking place alongside the ctcLink project. Thank you to everyone who has been involved with the project. We look forward to sharing more updates in the future.