SUNY Brockport`s website will be coming out with a redesigned look in early 2024. The last redesign took place seven years ago in 2016. 

The university’s web team works alongside a consultant team, known as White Whale Web Services. It typically takes around one year for both parties to go from one website design to another. 

Students, like SUNY Brockport junior Robert Merill, participated on a student panel to learn more about this process. 

“They talked about modernization and updating the website in a way that kind of streamlined everything,” Merill said. “They wanted student input to make everything move smoother and appeal to students more, like cut down on the number of click-throughs that you need to get to Web Banner or Brightspace.” 

Having a user-friendly website that is simple and easy to navigate allows users to make the most out of their time they spend on the site. A big focus for the college was trying to appeal to the user.  

“They wanted it to feel homey, but also exciting and something that you’re proud of, like you click on this and you see the best of Brockport,” Merill said.  

SUNY Brockport assistant vice president for communications John Follaco is one of the members of the web team. 

“One of the goals of the project is to make information easier to find and we know that students have questions especially as it relates to finding support services on campus. We know people are busy and we know people have short attention spans, they may not want to read huge blocks of text,” Follaco said. 

An important goal of this project is to present an attractive product that people won’t be overwhelmed by. In addition, the university also wanted users to be able to easily find specific information no matter the stage of their college career. 

“We want to appeal to prospective students and their families, both first-year prospective students, transfer students, graduate students – we want to sell them the SUNY Brockport experience,” Follaco said.  

Aside from the web team, the university is also reaching out to other parts of its faculty to collaborate on this project. 

“There are eight of us on the web team, then there are representatives from each of the three schools (School of Arts and Sciences, School of Business and Management and School of Education, Health and Human Services) that sat on the project team,” Follaco said. “There`s a representative from graduate admissions and undergraduate admissions in student affairs. So that’s about 15 SUNY Brockport representatives on the project team.” 

The university`s website redesign is expected to go live sometime between Jan. and Feb. 2024.