Higher ed website redesign: why you should build your case

People don’t like change – especially on THEIR website.

Although you know it’s time to redesign your old graphic-intensive non-ADA compliant website launched 5 years ago, you’d rather live in fear of being featured on webpagesthatsuck.com than use the “R-word.” In the second part of the series “Why most university websites suck”, posted on her personal blog, Andrea Schwandt-Arbogast, Web Manager for Humboldt State University in Eureka, CA, explains: “the default state of University web sites is conservatism. They get redesigned every five years or so, when they’re at the point that they’re so broken or graphically embarrassing that they are hurting the institution.”

People don’t like change – especially when it means that they will have to learn a new way to go through their daily routines.

I don’t believe in website redesign for the sake of redesigning. However, there comes a time in a website life when there is no alternative.

I know it. You know it. But, THEY will fight it.

As soon as you mention the magic word of redesign, some of your website stakeholders as well as the vocal minority of your constituent audiences will start to resist, criticize and oppose your project from inception to completion.

That’s why it’s always better to build (and make) a strong case for your website redesign while setting up the proper communication channels (website redesign blogs can really help) necessary to gather and process feedback from stakeholders and constituents.