Web Site Launch
In October Tyndale’s Web Steering Committee gave me the mandate to rebuild the Tyndale front entry page as well as create more robust front entry pages for the University College and The Seminary. The goal was to have these 3 pages launched before Christmas break.
We started from scratch – with input from the committee, Academic Deans, Communication department and others, we developed a new look and feel for theses pages. I realized quickly we could not just do these pages alone as some of the new content on these pages required other pages for support. There was no point in creating these sub-pages in the old look so content templates were also created.
I am proud to announce on behalf of the Web Steering Committee that this project launched at 7:15 this morning!
Swing by and have a look:
http://www.tyndale.ca
http://www.tyndale.ca/universitycollege
http://www.tyndale.ca/seminary
In addition we have added some new great content to support these pages – I will speak on these soon – for now have a look at the new interactive map/location page:
http://www.tyndale.ca/about/map.php
I have also had time to port the Foundation and About sections into the new look and feel. I am not sure at what point we will be able to port the rest of the site to this new look – the Web Steering Committee will have to look at this in the near future.
If you would like to leave comments please do below!
Gerry Kroezen Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 10:51 am
Andy!
It looks great! I was on it just before you sent out the announcement email and was surprised to see the fresh new face of the Tyndale website.
Thanks for all of your hard work!
Cheers,
Gerry
Paul Wong Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 10:53 am
Thanks for launching the new website. Here is one simply question:
Chris Lewis has put in a lot of new information into our psychology website, including the new Honours Psychology Program. How do we make your program link go the our new psychology website? Can you do it for us? If now, would you please tell Chris how to do it? It is vitally important that we link to new honours psychology program, because this is what we advertise at Urbana.
albert Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 11:09 am
the look and feel is modern, contemporary, yet readability is still clean, simple and easy on the eyes. Thanks be to God for you Andy, awesome job!!!
Andy Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 11:10 am
Paul-
From the front page of the web site prospective students can click on the link “Programs� which brings them to the UC Programs (or majors) listing. Also once in the University College Section there is a link directly to the department web sites.
If the Honours Psychology Program is new and has not been added to the programs listing on the site then that needs to be dealt with. The UC office can add new programs at any time. If they need help I can go through it with them.
Steve Boctor Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 11:25 am
Hey,
Good work! I like it! Takes a little getting used to for those of us who are accustomed to the older one.
Richard Davis Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 11:44 am
Hi Andy,
You are a web genius!!! The homepage is a work of art — just great.
My only comment has to do with its content, which I fully realize is not your responsibility. To indicate to the outside world that we are a *real* university, and not just a bible college masquerading as one, we need to do at least two things. First, remove all the links under “News and Events”. These are all seminary or fundraising related, and hence inappropriate for display on the homepage of an academic university.
Second, we need to showcase what TUC actually does. We do Great Books. And you’d never know that from the homepage. Here instead of saying ‘Campus Wide Wireless Connection’, we can say ‘Great Books for a Great Future’. We can create a ‘flashing graphic’ advertising our Summer Great Books week for high school students. What I have in mind here is a graphic of the Bodleian Library at Oxford with the faces of Lewis and Tolkien deftly superimposed on top. That’s exciting, and properly represents what ALL BA students experience in the Shaping of the Western mind first year sequence.
With respect to the Summer Great Books week, we probably need a series of interconnected pages, if we are going to do this properly. This is high priority to my mind. On this point, see for example:
http://youth.biola.edu/academics/torrey/emmaus/
As for your enormous talents at web design, I can only say that I stand in awe!!! The homepage is simply beautiful.
Cheers,
Richard
Paul Miller Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Hey Andy,
Site Looks Awesome! Love the new look! Good Job.
Love how it is all done in CSS!
Ben Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 11:51 am
Excellent work! Looks fantastic.
Thomas Smith Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 12:06 pm
Congratulations! The new site looks and works great. I love the new feel and new colours. Well done.
Jason Carson Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 1:38 pm
Andy,
I am impressed but not suprised that you were able to bring about such a positive change to the overall look and usability of the website. You have tackled the two most important issues with website design as you always had, Useability/Functionality and Appearace. As you have meshed these two needed items together in way that works. Congrats…
Jason.
Andy Said,
December 20, 2006 @ 3:55 pm
Thank you all for your kind words
Andy Said,
December 21, 2006 @ 11:27 am
Richard-
Thank you for your encouraging comments – on to your concerns…
1st – I am not sure we will ever be able to get rid of the news & events – they are a big part of what happens at Tyndale – however we have set it up in a way that allows us to choose what news and events show up on what entry page – if you look closely you will notice that the ones showing on the front page are different then the ones on the UC page which are different then the ones showing on the Seminary page.
2nd – we can showcase whatever we wish – the main graphical treatment at the top – what I call the “Bling Boxâ€? – is dynamic and is run from a database – once again they are different for each entry page. Each ad spot needs to be linked to something – we will consider new Bling ads in the new year.
With respect to the Summer Great Books week web site – we can talk about this in person – I am sure we can work something out.
Richard Davis Said,
December 22, 2006 @ 5:17 pm
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your most helpful reply. Your ‘Bling’ ads are way cool, and I look forward to working with you on something for the Summer Great Books!!
Re: the ‘News and Events’, I understand. That section must stay. But what I’d prefer to see there is news and events concerning the UC — e.g., Drs. Ron and Jennifer Weed have won academic fellowships to study at the University of Leeds this summer. Now *that* is something to report. Fundraising and seminary news should be noted, but somewhere *else* on the site.
I must say, once again, how DYNAMITE the site looks. You are doing great work for Tyndale!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers,
Richard