Welcome to the new Digital Developments Team blog

Introducing our new blog

Welcome to the new blog for the Digital Developments Team at York St John University. We will be using this blog to start conversations about digital developments, to let you know what we’re working on, and to share knowledge about our industry and university.

In this first post we will tell you about our recent team name change and the project we’re currently working on to redevelop the York St John University website.

Our new team name

We recently changed the name of our team from The Web Team to The Digital Developments Team. This reflects some key changes to our team’s purpose and better captures how we want to work with the rest of the University.

Some of the reasons for our name change are:

• We do not want to be limited to just one platform. Whilst the website is still at the heart of our work, we want to use our expertise to support the development of other digital platforms.
• The University website belongs to all staff, not just to us. The website is the most powerful tool our staff have for communicating with their audience. We are not the owners of website content but we are here to help people to use that platform in the best way possible.
• We are committed to developing the University’s digital presence. To support the University and its staff we are always researching, testing, launching and improving the digital resources available. By including developments in our team name we are making this priority clear.

The website redevelopment project

If you have visited the York St John University website recently you may notice that we have made some major changes. This is because we have started an ambitious project to redesign and rebuild our website. We want to create a sector-leading, accessible site which works for all users.

In future blog posts we will write about the many different strands making up this project. We’ll talk about why we’re making these changes, how we’re implementing them and what this means for our users.

Here are some of the main objectives we are working towards:

• Deliver a new design and layout to support the University’s rebrand. In early 2019 the University updated its brand and vision. The new website will reflect the values and brand of the University.
• Better connect with our audience and improve user experience. York St John University is committed to sharing the power of education with every human. This commitment starts with our website. The new website will be accessible to all and cater to the needs of our users.
• Build a new digital pattern library. A pattern library is a collection of simple design elements such as buttons, accordions, or image containers which can be used across the website. Our new pattern library will allow us to be flexible when designing webpages without sacrificing consistency.
• Rebuild our navigation structure. The new website structure and navigation will reflect the tasks and topics that are important to our users.
• Redevelop our content guidelines. We want content on our website to answer the needs of our users. We will create the tools and guidance needed to make content as accessible and inclusive as possible.
• Implement a new editing and publishing model. To make it easier for staff to publish, review and update their content we will be reviewing the publishing model used across the website.

Thanks for reading!

Thank you for reading our first post. We want this blog to be an interesting and informative forum for talking about projects we are working on. We value your feedback and want to take this opportunity to encourage you to get in touch.

The illustrations in this blog post were created and shared for free by Ouch.pics.