- Re:Design Blog - Lenoir-Rhyne University

Three students talking during new student orientation

New LR Website Beta Preview – Sept. 13-24

September 8, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

After more than 15 months of project work, we are excited to offer to the Lenoir-Rhyne community a beta preview of the new, redesigned website September 13-24. The new site will launch during fall break October 11-12.

How You Can Help

During the beta preview, we ask university faculty and staff to review the new website, in particular, areas of the site to which you are responsible and submit any content updates, changes or issues using our online web content update request form.

Two smiling students in crowd wearing LR hats

Revised Site Launch Date Set for October 11-12

July 29, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We have spent the summer months deep at work in writing, editing and migrating content to the new website. We also received Drupal content management system (CMS) training in June. As with any new website and new CMS platform, it takes time to learn the new platform as you work with it. During the process, you encounter bugs or stuff that you didn’t anticipate, which can delay the migration of content and finalizing the site. Some of the integrations have taken longer to address than we originally anticipated, e.g., integration with the Acalog digital catalog, the campus directory (to be pulled from PowerCampus) and the campus calendar.

Two LR students talking at table in Shaw Plaza

Website Style Guide

June 23, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We are excited to launch our new Lenoir-Rhyne University website style guide.

An essential part of any successful project is documentation. In building out a modular, component-driven website, documenting all the various design elements, components and page types is important to making sure we are all working from the same playbook.

Working with our partner, BarkleyREI, a style guide has been created to provide guidelines for usage, documentation and raw code for all of LR website’s patterns, components and templates. All of this is provided to assist us and our campus partners in creating, designing and developing robust and accessible digital experiences across all Lenoir-Rhyne web properties.

LRU students in audience at 2021 commencement ceremony

Content, Content and More Content

May 10, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

The Marketing and Communications team is deep in content writing and editing for the new website. We are working to finalize content that will begin to be migrated to the new website starting the week of May 17 throughout the summer months.

We hope to have a two-week window of time before website launch where the campus community can preview a beta version of the website and submit updates and content changes before the official site launch.

Once the new website is launched, our work doesn’t end. it is just the beginning. We will continue to write and edit content and work with faculty and staff across LR to make content changes on the new website over the fall semester.

New Homepage Design

April 6, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We are excited to unveil the design for LR’s new homepage. To get this point, we have carried forward what we have learned through each stage in the redesign project so far.

Content Strategy – We started with an approved content strategy. Through our content strategy work, we identified more than 15 different content types.
Design Exploration – Content strategy work informed our design exploration, which set the design direction (visual language) for the new website.
Component Library – We create a large number of components in our component library to serve all of our different content types.
Interior Templates – We created more than 14 interior templates that are strategically used to help arrange content in the component library to serve the purpose of pages. The interior template work informs what we are doing with the homepage since we’ve put a lot of thought into the content types and components used throughout the rest of the site.

Student wearing a mask hands out masks at information table

Interior Template Designs

February 27, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We are excited to share with you a sampling of some interior template designs for the new website. With these designs, you can really start to see the new look for the LR website coming together.

Templates create context by strategically combining and arranging components to support the overall purpose of a page, e.g., high-level landing page, standard page, programs, courses, news and event articles, faculty and staff biography, etc.

In the page designs you see the overall structure and organization of the components within specific page templates.

Professor lecturing to students at front of class

Submit a New Faculty Biography

February 10, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

Every Lenoir-Rhyne University full-time faculty member will have a faculty biography webpage on the new website. These webpages will be linked to from the new campus directory as well as appear on academic program pages with other program faculty.

New submissions and updates for faculty biography webpages can be submitted using a simple online form at www.lr.edu/faculty-webpage-updates.html.

Student wearing a mask works in science lab

Academic Program Website Questionnaire

February 9, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

Creating more robust and engaging academic program pages that better reflect the LR student experience and academic excellence is a top priority for the website redesign project.

We are asking all academic programs to complete an academic program website questionnaire. The answers and information provided through the questionnaire will help Marketing and Communications improve the web presence for each academic program.

Questionnaire Online Submission Form

We have created a simple online form that can be used to submit completed academic program questionnaires and additional documents, photos, etc. Multiple files may be uploaded to the questionnaire by choosing the files on your computer or by dragging and dropping the files to the upload area of the form.

Charge sculpture of bear lightly covered in first snow of season

Preview of New University Calendar

February 8, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

Marketing and Communications invites you to preview and submit events to the new university events calendar at https://calendar.lr.edu.

The new university calendar is part of the website redesign project and presents a more engaging view of events at Lenoir-Rhyne (all three LR campus locations) and will replace the current calendar on the LR website. As part of the calendar launch, Marketing and Communications is scheduling a couple upcoming “tech talks” on Feb. 18-19 on how to use the calendar as well as how to market and promote LR events. A video recording of the session will be made available for those unable to attend.

Calendar Tech Talks

Learn more about the new university calendar, how to add and update events, how to marketing and promote your events and event marketing timelines and checklists.

Professor talks with student in science lab while student in foreground works on computer

Component Library Designs

January 26, 2021 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

In a previous post, I shared the initial design explorations for the new website that included both design elements (purposeful elements that are the foundational building blocks of a design system, e.g., color, iconography, typography, etc.) and design patterns (functional and repeatable configurations of elements that perform specific functions through user interaction (buttons, inputs, dropdowns, etc.).

In this post, you will find designs for the various components that will be seen throughout the new website. Components convey meaning by combining patterns to support specific content types, e.g., carousels, menus, accordions, media types, content featurettes, etc.

Two students show "LR Bears" signs they painted

Website Design Explorations

December 7, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

Before diving in, it is important to define what design explorations are and what they are not. The elements represented within design explorations are NOT intended to be representative of an actual webpage or website.

Localist Selected as New Campus Calendar

December 3, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We are pleased to announce that Localist has been selected as LR’s new campus calendar. During December and January, Marketing and Communications will work to populate the calendar with content and switch over the calendar on the current website to Localist. As part of the redesign project, Localist will be integrated into the new website.

Sometime in January 2021, we will begin promoting the calendar within the university community. We will schedule a couple “tech talks” and walk event organizers through how to add events to the calendar. However, no training is needed to submit events to the calendar since it offers a simple, easy to use event submission form.

Four students jump for joy in front of residence hall at the start of academic year.

Updated Web Redesign Project Schedule

October 30, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We are scheduled to launch the redesigned LR website August 3-5, 2021. In this post we provide a rough timeline for the redesign project, including the following phases: experience design, content development and migration, site development, training, site deployment and launch.

Student registering to vote on LR campus

User Personas, Sitemap & Navigation Development

October 28, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

During September and October we worked to develop website user personas and the new website’s sitemap.

It’s important to understand what goals we are trying to achieve with persona and sitemap development during the user experience phase of the project.

Develop an intuitive, user-driven architecture with clear navigational pathways for prospective students, current students, parents, and other important tertiary audiences.
Ensure that all campus and graduate pathways are represented to support an engaging, efficient user journey.

Students walking across campus with masks

Web Redesign Discovery Findings

September 25, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

BarkleyREI conducted remote discovery sessions with LR stakeholders August 11-28, 2020, to learn more about the university, analyze the existing LR web presence, understand the wants and needs of users and to uncover key insights that will inform the strategic direction for the redesigned website.

BarkleyREI met with more than 70 faculty, staff and students from across LR’s three campus locations: Hickory, Asheville and Columbia.

Web Redesign Discovery Sessions

July 31, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

We’re excited to kick off the web redesign project with virtual discovery sessions with various university groups and departments/offices the weeks of August 10 and 17. BarkleyREI has been busy the last few weeks getting to know LR through provided publications, research, website analytics, brand messaging documents, etc. We are looking forward to having BarkleyREI meet and talk with groups across the university.

In this post we provide a tentative schedule for project discovery.

Morgan Parker, Visitor Writers Series, speaks at Lenoir-Rhyne University

Rethinking the University Campus Calendar

June 13, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

A robust and publicly accessible campus calendar builds community around events while publicizing the hundreds of events that are scheduled on campus each academic year—lectures, presentations, performances, music, theater, films, art showings, athletic games, among many other event types.

As detailed in our web redesign RFP, the current LR campus calendar does not meet the needs of the university. In this post, we explore some of the desired features and functionality we are looking to implement in the redesigned campus calendar.

Agency Selected for Web Redesign Project

May 25, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

After a lengthy review process, which included participation and input from a review group of faculty and staff from the Hickory, Asheville and Columbia campuses, Lenoir-Rhyne has selected BarkleyREI from Pittsburgh, Pa. for the redesign of LR.edu.

A big thank you to the faculty and staff who assisted in the review of vendor finalists. Your questions and perspective informed our review and selection process and we are grateful for your work.

Digital Marketing & Advertising

April 18, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

Incredibly important to LR’s Digital Footprint, the university’s website is just one component of our digital strategy. The LR website serves as our information and transactional hub and as our most important marketing and communications vehicle.

A poor visitor experience can hurt websites in numerous ways, including turning away prospective students and donors because the website is difficult to use, doesn’t communicate our brand or isn’t set up with calls to action that request visitors’ information at the point when they are most interested in LR (aka conversions).

Another important component of a strong digital strategy is digital marketing and advertising.

Digital advertising is an effective strategy for increasing brand awareness of LR, our programs and our priorities. Instead of depending solely on prospective students finding us by visiting our website, we get our information in front of them on the websites and services they regularly visit or at the top of search results when they are looking for specific keywords.

Modular or Component-Driven Web Design

March 16, 2020 by Doug Minor Leave a Comment

One requirement for the web redesign project is to design and build a site that has an ultra-flexible design framework consisting of a large number of modules or components. Instead of thinking of our website as a number of page templates, we think of it as a series of parts, which when combined create a variety of page layouts and designs.

This kind of site development is referred to as modular or atomic design or component-driven design.

Re:Design Blog

The Lenoir-Rhyne University Web Redesign Project

How You Can Help

Questionnaire Online Submission Form

Calendar Tech Talks