We knew our website redesign would give us a new place to tell stories, but as we’ve developed the new site it’s been interesting to explore how readily we can use it as an extension of our existing publications. Wherever you look there are new windows onto our content, whether it’s an item that first saw the light in the magazine online or @St. Norbert, on our YouTube page or via one of our many social media outlets. Either way, our content is leaking all over the web.
First place that’s evident is the home page, where almost all the content is dynamic. Watch the banner images at the top of the page change with the seasons and the Twitter feed at the bottom change with the hours. Or, toggle between the News and Events “holes” for a week-by-week window onto campus affairs.
Most interesting to develop has been the Living Norbertine section, and you’ll see why if you take a look at the landing page under that tab. It’s always been a challenge for the college – the only institution of higher education in the world to be founded by the Norbertine order of priests – to explain and exploit its unique heritage. Truly, we are Norbertine, and, truly, very few people in the United States know what that actually means. One solution, on the web at least, seems to be to show, not tell, how being Norbertine makes all the difference. In Living Norbertine we offer a changing scrapbook of stories that serves that purpose well. In fact, it’s quite gratifying to see how easily the stories we tell fit this format; turns out that, after all, it’s a thoroughly Norbertine lens we’ve been turning on campus life all along.
What’s more, the Living Norbertine page essentially give us a new little online magazine – a great place to collect and develop engaging material, arrange it around a compelling theme, and share it with a fresh audience.
Next time: Right-Hand Navigation: Sidebars Everywhere You Look!
