The 2023 NOVA Website Redesign Project Update. Complete Survey by Friday

NOVA’s website is constantly being updated. From one day to the next, you will find our webpage content is being updated, pages are being redesigned and photos and links are added or swapped out. However, the current overall look and functionality of the site is nearly seven years old. So that is why NOVA has embarked on a process that will lead to an entirely new site by the end of this summer. This project started back in January 2023 and will soon kick into high gear. Although the site itself will not launch for several months we are starting to meet with faculty, staff and students to help ensure the new site is student focused and streamlined so that students can quickly and easily find the information they need. Here are a few Q&As to provide more details on this important project:

Who is helping to facilitate this redesign?
NOVA is working with two agencies for the 2023 website redesign: VisionPoint Marketing and idfive. Additionally, we are working with leadership and stakeholders throughout the college.

• VisionPoint is assisting us with our content management strategy. This is a structured plan to guide NOVA’s content and data to effectively manage information across the College website.
• Idfive is working with NOVA on the planning, production/development of the redesign. We’re partnering with idfive to conduct research on essential needs while addressing College-specific challenges with thoughtful and creative solutions. The overall goal is to ensure an optimal user experience while supplying an improved look, well-thought-out information architecture and enhancement of usability.
• College Leadership and Stakeholders will be asked to help throughout the project to assist with reviewing concepts, updating and approving content, and testing the function of various parts of the website.

Why are we doing this?
There is hardly anything more frustrating when searching for information than having a big, unwieldy website. We’re doing this redesign to streamline content, highlight important information, freshen up the look and improve the user experience.

What’s the ultimate goal?  
The goal of this project is to improve the user experience while implementing a thoughtful, strategic plan for content, design and information architecture. The redesign will focus on the student journey, simple navigation and responsiveness, all while maintaining our bold NOVA branding.

Who is the audience?
Students, both current and prospective, are the target audience for the NOVA website redesign. We feel that, if it speaks to students, it will speak to all of us. We’re using a “strategy-first” approach to development. This means we’re looking at data, architecture, content, usability flows and improved design to understand the best plan of action in assisting students and prospective students in getting directly (and quickly) to the core of the information they need to succeed. 

Who is involved? 
NOVA’s Web Services and College Marketing teams are leading the charge with guidance from academic affairs, deans, enrollment management and input from departments, collegewide.

Is student input being used? 
You bet! Student focus groups will help us with testing the site at each phase to ensure usability and to provide feedback for overall performance.

Faculty and Staff input—You can start now!
There will be times throughout this process when we request feedback from faculty and staff. Currently, as part of this project, we need your feedback on how pages on the site are labeled and organized. You can help by completing this short, interactive survey. For each question, please tell us where on the site you would expect to find the answer. This should take only five to ten minutes to complete, and all answers are 100% anonymous. Complete the survey here.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions about this project, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our associate director of web services, Angela Manning, AManning@nvcc.edu.

Submitted by:
Toni Angelo, Director of Marketing, TAngelo@nvcc.edu