The Southern community can expect a few changes to begin showing up at www.mssu.edu.  University Relations and Marketing (URM) is currently planning a redesign for the MSSU homepage, and will implement the new look over the coming months.

“We’re trying to just tighten up our message on the website — across the board — add new photography, add new videos,” said Cassie Mathes, director of university relations and marketing.

One of the first steps URM is taking in the redesign process is actually communicating with all of the different offices and departments found on campus. The purpose of this dialogue is to make sure that each department’s section on the website contains relevant, up to date information.

“People across campus have been very cooperative and very receptive to us doing this,” said Mathes. “They want their webpages to look great — which has been wonderful for our team.”

New design templates will also be added to the redesign — which will change the visual elements of the website and give it a new look. These templates are currently being programmed by URM’s web developers and will be added to the website with each completed department folder.

“Some pages on the website will look different than other pages — some will have the old templates still,” said Mathes. “As we review each folder, then we apply the templates, so you’ll know which folders have already been touched.”

In addition to updating each departmental webpage with new content and design templates, URM is planning to redesign the actual MSSU homepage and find new ways to encourage students to use web portals such as Lionet, Blackboard and their student emails.

“The exciting thing about this web redesign is that it’s so all-encompassing that we’re touching content refresh, as well as image refresh — which I really like,” said Mathes. “It’s easy to apply a new template across a website and call it a redesign, but you really need to get in there and look at the content and see what you need to address about that. That’s the hard part.”

According to Mathes, the MSSU website will also become responsive once the redesign is complete — meaning it will be mobile-friendly and adapt to any screen it is viewed on.

“It’s a pretty big project that will take us months to complete, but so far, it’s going really well,” said Mathes.