Website revamp goes live

With the new year comes a new look for the TSTC website, www.waco.tstc.edu. The site provides visitors with improvements in ease of use, search, navigation and appearance.

"The new site better reflects our reputation as a leader in technical education and offers visitors improved graphics with better user navigation in order for content to be quickly and easily accessed," said Jan Osburn, director of TSTC Marketing & Communications. "The new design includes better content organization and navigation as suggested by end users through one-on-one interviews and focus groups."

Features of the website include a drop down menu navigation, graphic map and calendar, landing pages for students and employees and updated copy on programs and services. Based on focus group reactions and trends in higher education websites, the new site design features a splashy front page with large graphics and photos and an interactive spotlight panel. The design features TSTC's signature blue and red colors along with gold, a highlight color used extensively in TSTC Waco branding.

Osburn said the web update took place in a shortened amount of time due to TSTC's upcoming reaccreditation.

"Our website committee did amazing work to create the new site in around three months," Osburn said. "With our reaccreditation right around the corner we needed to work quickly to finish the highest priority pages first. Some pages are still in development and we plan to have it all completed very soon."

The committee was comprised of staff and faculty from different areas of the campus including the Web Design & Development program. They started the web redesign by conducting website testing with current students, employees and high school students. After creating the site, the group did more testing with students from A.J. Moore Academy to make sure they got it right.

"The focus group process helped us to narrow down the features users liked and didn't like and shaped the end design extensively," Osburn said. "It was eye opening to watch someone navigate our website and miss features we thought were very obvious. After testing at A.J. Moore we made a lot of easy changes that made a big difference."

Since the site is still under development, students and employees are encouraged to submit feedback when they can't find something or come across an error.  A feedback button is located at the bottom of every page and copying the URL of the page with the error helps speed up the repair process.

"We'll respond as quickly as we can," Osburn said. "Your feedback is invaluable to us."