Newswise — (February 25, 2016 New York, NY) New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), a university with six global campuses and seven schools and colleges, today launched its new mobile-friendly website, www.NYIT.edu.
“We undertook the task of completely redoing the entire NYIT site because despite our multiple locations and 90+ degree programs, we are one university,” said Nancy Donner, Vice President for Communications and Marketing, who led the collaboration of in-house web, design, editorial, and IT teams, guided by the award-winning firm of Happy Cog, based in Philadelphia.
“A bold, unique, and efficient website was required to reinforce and demonstrate NYIT’s core brand attributes as being dynamic, transformative, experiential, and innovative,” said Donner. “It’s not enough to say we are these things; we need our website to demonstrate them.”
Happy Cog designers spent time with NYIT’s new marketing materials to help conceptualize the design. In the process, they found that unlike other universities, NYIT’s brand identity extends far beyond its logo. “Nobody else in academia looks like this, and we wanted to mirror the energy and fluidity of NYIT’s print work online,” said Happy Cog Design Director Michael Johnson.
Meanwhile, the Communications and Marketing team worked with external contributors to create content to advance the university’s story, including:
• 72 videos showcasing NYIT’s technology, entrepreneurship, diversity, and applications-oriented research
• Thousands of images revealing the hands-on, experiential nature of NYIT’s academic offerings as well as beautiful abstracts created from zooming in on everyday classroom objects
• Design elements that reflect NYIT’s emphasis on color and vibrant visuals, including dozens of custom icons and illustrations, along with eight animations Key NYIT.edu features include:
• A screen-adaptive design for easy reading on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and traditional desktop computers
• Advanced development techniques that result in optimized content that ensures text, videos, and images load quickly on all devices
• Custom, personalized coding for superior search engine optimization
User Experience
“We thought about what our site visitors wanted to know, what they needed to know, and what we needed them to understand about NYIT,” Donner said. “This approach brought clarity to the creation of pages for marketing and the development of other sections, such as our online applications or course catalogs that are more transactional.”
John Roleke, NYIT’s Director of Digital Media who managed the project, said, “With 2,000+ pages, we have a lot of content, but we’ve made it much easier for users who want a quick overview of the university and for those who want to dig deeper into our programs and campuses.”
“Every page of the site needs to tell a compelling story,” added Web Content Editor Ron Goldberg. “Working closely with our colleagues helped us identify and focus on key messages and weed out irrelevant and outdated content. But, it’s an ongoing process—one that will continue throughout the life of the website.”
About NYITNew York Institute of Technology (NYIT) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 12,000 students attending campuses on Long Island and Manhattan, online, and abroad. Led by President Edward Guiliano, NYIT is guided by its mission to provide career-oriented professional education, offer access to opportunity to all qualified students, and support applications-oriented research that benefits the larger world. To date, nearly 100,000 graduates have received degrees from NYIT. For more information, visit nyit.edu.
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