The site architecture is the fundamental logic that governs:
- how information is organized into webpages and sub-sites
- where webpages are built within sub-sites
- how webpages are interrelated within sub-sites and across the entire site
- how navigation menus are structured within sub-sites and across the entire site
It is essential that this logic stays consistent throughout the site, so that people understand how to move around the site and can find the information they need.
Principles & Goals
Our website information architecture follows three key principles:
- User-Centered: Organize information around themes or topics to meet users’ needs and do not assume they possess insider knowledge about the institution’s inner workings
- Intuitive: Make it easy for users to find information they seek whether via navigation menus or site search
- Streamlined: Remove redundant content and content that is unnecessary for public audiences, and redirect to other digital properties that better provide information for specific audiences
In keeping with these key principles, our website information architecture has the following goals.
Represent WSU as a Unified Institution
The homepage and other top-level pages focus on a singular WSU experience and tell a holistic story about the value WSU provides to our students and communities.
Academic programs are centralized into pages within the Academic Program Finder functionality to better represent the entire array of academic offerings at our institution. This centralized structure also makes it more intuitive for students to explore programs given that they are less familiar with the internal organization hierarchy of colleges and academic departments.
There is also less emphasis placed on Winona Campus versus Rochester Campus at higher-level pages, and campus-specific content is largely integrated along user-centered themes. Distinctions between the two locations and their offerings are represented appropriately when drilling down into lower-level pages.
Serve Multiple Target Audiences
The primary target audience is prospective students and their families, as these external audiences are limited in their communication channels with WSU. The secondary target audience is current students, as student success is a core institutional value and responsibility.
In general, the content across the public website is designed for these audiences.
However, there are several additional audiences that use the public website such as faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and community members. This is why the global site header includes an audience-specific navigation menu (“Info for”) that provides landing pages to organize information and resources for those distinct audiences.
Additionally, the global site header includes a Location navigation menu that provides landing pages dedicated to campus-specific information. This provides an alternate navigation path to broader institutional services and resources.
Balance Public Information & Internal Information
The public website is the main communication platform for external audiences, while internal audiences such as current students and employees have access to multiple internal communications platforms including email, D2L, online portals, and OneDrive/Teams sites.
Thus, information relevant to the general public is prioritized, and information used solely by internal audiences is segmented into strategic landing pages or moved into internal communications platforms.
The public website serves as a routing mechanism to internal communications platforms for ease of access to these resources for current students and employees.
Site Hierarchy
The site architecture is structured in a hierarchy starting from the homepage (Level 0) into five sub-sites (Level 1) that serve as the primary navigation within the global site header:
- About: general high-level information about the university and information tied to institutional reputation, leadership, and mandated operations such as Affirmative Action & Title IX
- Academics: information tied to academic programs and courses, academic colleges/departments, and academic research opportunities
- Admissions: information tied to university admissions processes
- Financial Aid: information tied to cost of attendance and financial aid processes
- Student Life: information tied to services, support, and resources for student success as well as social and recreational opportunities
These sub-sites were intentionally selected as fundamental aspects of the university and priorities for prospective students based on WSU focus group data, competitor research, and industry best practices.
Each of these sub-sites have further primary site navigation to landing pages (Level 2) and secondary navigation to informational pages (Level 3) that expand on specific topics within the sub-site focus theme.
The sub-site hierarchy may be further extended to informational pages (Level 4 & Level 5) if necessary to delve deeply into a topic area.
Information that does not align with sub-site focus themes is structured in a similar hierarchy within the root site. The audience-specific landing pages in the “Info For” menu are an example of this alternate practice.