UBC's new website

Here's the email UBC sent everyone the day before they launched their new web presence:

"To the UBC Community,

We are pleased to announce that a significantly redesigned UBC.ca website will launch on April 25th, 2014.

Consultation and research showed that the current site could do a better job reflecting the true nature and scope of our university. The navigation, content
and functionality of the current site makes it difficult for our visitors to find the information they are looking for and the overall look is considered conservative and dated. The redesign addresses these challenges; it is bold and experiential, offering improved design, navigation and content. A few highlights of these changes are:

1. Moving from a solely internally-focused navigation structure to one that is also audience-based

2. Expanding the opportunity for faculties and units to share their content through a new homepage section called “UBC Now”

3. Creating innovative and in-depth stories on the homepage that illustrate the impact UBC is making in the world

4. Implementing secondary pages that provide a stronger introduction to internal UBC partner sites to improve site navigation and hand-off

We are encouraged by the positive feedback we have received from those who have seen the site while in development and will continue to monitor its performance and fine-tune as required following launch.

We wish to thank the large number of contributors from across our campuses for bringing their energy and ideas to the project.

We invite you to explore the site in the days ahead:

http://www.ubc.ca


Kari Grist
Managing Director
Communications & Marketing

UBC a place of mind"

 And here's the home page:

Actually there are several other versions with different photos, all of people evidently thrilled by what they're discovering at UBC.  The little dots in the ring around his head are links to pages about specific aspects of UBC's wonderfulness.

And here's the obligatory xkcd cartoon.  Rich FitzJohn found this and points out how obedient UC remains to its precepts.