Do The Wave (again)

With the UND.edu website redevelop complete, we are starting over with a site-wide audit. Although huge strides have been made with the redesign, we’ve got work to do to ensure our website meets industry standard for performance and usability.

SiteImprove

The SiteImprove platform is used to monitor site-wide issues with accessibility, search engine optimization (SEO) and quality assurance (QA) categories. The platform generates reports of pages needing fixes as well as compares UND.edu with industry benchmark scores in each category.

Current scores are in range (or nearly in range) and the site-wide audit is needed to ensure UND.edu continues meeting goals.

• Quality Assurance score: 93.9 (industry benchmark: 78.6)
• Accessibility score: 70.7 (industry benchmark: 75.6)
• SEO score: 82.8 (industry benchmark: 79.4)

The Audit

Similar to the website redevelopment project, the audit will have a waved approach and campus partners will be responsible for making necessary improvements to their site. Audit meetings will be scheduled to discuss site performance, best practices and determine next steps for improvement.

The following information will be provided to site owners prior to scheduled meetings:

• Website performance analytics
• List of zombie pages and images/docs that aren’t linked and need to be deleted
• Performance heat maps of index and/or high traffic pages
• OmniUpdate user list
• SiteImprove reports of accessibility, quality assurance and SEO issues

Other topics on the agenda may include mobile performance, photo and video needs, assets/duplicate content and UND calendar and Directory usage. Site owners will be responsible for deleting zombie pages and documents as well as making content and template edits found in SiteImprove reports. Site improvements must be made by wave deadlines outlined below.

Wave Assignments

Waves were determined based on priority and the number of pages the Web Team can address at a given time. Any adjustments to wave assignments will require other sites to move waves. We understand site owners may be anxious to get this data. It takes considerable time to pull and analyze reports, therefore, we have to follow a process and timeline.

Wave 1:

• Academics (all sites in the UND.edu/academics/ folder)
• Admissions
• One-Stop Student Services
• College of Arts & Sciences
• College of Education & Human Development
• Nistler College of Business & Public Administration

Site improvements must be complete by August 1, 2020.

Wave 2:

• Student Life (all sites in the UND.edu/student-life/ folder)
• School of Medicine & Health Sciences
• School of Law
• College of Engineering & Mines
• College of Nursing & Professional Disciplines
• About (UND.edu/about folder)

Site improvements must be complete by December 31, 2020.

Wave 3:

• Chester Fritz Library
• Campus (all sites in the campus.UND.edu folder)
• EERC
• John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences
• Research (all sites in the UND.edu/research/ folder)
• Analytics and Planning
• Chester Fritz Auditorium
• Conferences
• UND Writers Conference
• Children & Family Services Training Center
• ND Small Business Development Centers
• VBOC of Dakotas
• ND Procurement Technical Assistance Center
• Center for Innovation
• Feast of Nations
• Northern Prairie Community Clinic

Site improvements must be complete by May 1, 2021.