uvm.edu/BORED dates back to 1996 when the Student Life office identified a surprising theme among students - despite a daily plethora of activities happening, students were saying that they were "bored" and had nothing to do. To combat this trend, the office developed uvm.edu/BORED, a site primarily based on a calendar that provides students with information about daily events that happen on and off campus.



Objective:



/Bored approached Union Street Media to upgrade their website platform. They wanted to update the site design to make it modern and exciting, while still maintaining the /Bored brand. In addition to updating the design, they wanted to revise the navigation to increase the efficiency with which students and other site visitors can find information. On the backend, they needed a platform that would allow more flexibility in terms of updates to site navigation, content, and design. The site also needed the ability to set up different user accounts, add new events quickly, and edit existing events.  Finally, /Bored knew that to truly modernize their web presence, they'd have to focus more heavily on social media integration and mobile web browsing. 



Solutions:

Update the website structure to increase ease-of-use:  The Interactive Team worked with UVM to update the navigation using their current site map, comprehensive survey notes, and best practices to provide site visitors with an easier way to locate information. The goal is to raise awareness of and increase attendance for events happening on and off campus. To address this need, Union Street Media identified the main ways in which the site targeted demographic searches for events and used these as main navigation elements.  In addition, the team noted that different site visitors would use the site in a variety of different ways. Creating a navigation in which events can be located through a variety of channels, Union Street Media ensured that no matter what a site visitor was interested in, they would find an event to suite them.

Create a modern design while maintaining key /Bored and UVM Student Life Branding: The Design Team worked with the existing design to ensure that the preexisting branding of the site would not be lost during the redesign. However, several changes were made to "modernize" the design and truly make it "cutting edge".  A key element of the new design was an alternative approach to a standard header.  Instead of placing the header and main navigation at the top of the page, the header was set at the "absolute bottom", taking the place of a standard footer.  This unique approach resulted in the ability for the site to fit within a wide variety of standard monitor and browser settings. The site now focuses on upcoming events.

Customized the content management system to provide UVM with a user-friendly interface to accommodate varying levels of technical ability: Due to yearly turnaround within the /Bored team, it was important to /Bored that the backend interface for the site allowed editors of varying technical abilities the ability to keep the site updated through adding, editing, and removing events, rearranging site navigation, and updating content on article pages.