Our team recently overhauled the front page of the Division of Information Technology’s products and services website. We hope the changes will make it even easier for Bobcats to find the technology they need.
We launched our services website at doit.txstate.edu/services in August 2018. It is already among the most visited sites at Texas State, with more than 825,000 pageviews since launch.
Still, part of the site wasn’t working well. The original layout required site visitors to choose whether they were a student, faculty member, or staff member. They would then see pages built specifically for their category. It turns out that very few people were using those pages.
When it comes to the web, search is where it is at. People visiting any website mostly get there by searching with Google or some other search engine. The same is true for our site. The majority of visitors are getting directly to the Texas State technology services they need using outside search engines. We want those who come to our front page to have a similarly easy experience.
Thus the new design for the website moves the searchable catalog right to the front page. We loved the audience-related pages idea when we designed it, but our job is to make things easier for users, and users overwhelmingly want to search. The lesson for our team is to always be checking and rechecking our work to continue to improve how we serve the university. We have built a very popular and helpful website, but we know it can always be better.
There are about 150 services and products on the IT services website. Now they should be easier to find. We hope you love the changes.
Feel free to let me know what you think at scott.ayers@txstate.edu.
