University begins website redesign

The University is currently redesigning JHU.edu for the first time since 2009 in an effort to simplify it and make important information more easily accessible. The finished product is expected to debut at the end of April.

The website will feature a new database of the University’s more than 200 academic programs, a stronger search function, a simplified menu and a new design.

“All they’ve done... is keep all the great features that we like and make sure they were simplified, that everything was integrated so that we can boast that ‘One University’ concept that President [Ronald J.] Daniels has been talking about,” Janice Bonsu, executive president of the Student Government Association (SGA), said. “And we made it useful for not only prospective students... but for people like us and faculty who’ve been here for many years.”

Bonsu lent her voice to the promotional video that advertises the changes being made to the website. She said HUB Editor David Alexander of the Office of Communications attended the Feb. 24 SGA meeting to present on the progress of the website redesign and later asked her via email about doing a voice-over for the video two days in advance of its launch.

“He goes, ‘Hey Janice, so sorry to bother you on such short notice, I know this isn’t really professional but... we don’t have a voice actress. Do you have a couple hours?’” Bonsu said. “It really wasn’t like I was chosen out of anything. It was just the right place and the right time. They’re so amazing about wanting to have a student input in it.”

The website itself is being redesigned based in part on feedback from Hopkins faculty, staff, students, parents and alumni. The redesign team will continue to gather feedback both before and after the site’s launch and make changes as it sees fit.

The redesign team also studied data about how visitors use the site and performed user testing to make minor adjustments to the site’s features.

“They really made sure that they enhanced the things that are being commonly used,” Bonsu said. “The things that weren’t being used often they re-tuned and tried to make that more useful.”

According to Bonsu the website redesign has been in the works since 2013.

“They came to us two years ago on SGA and said, ‘This is project we’re going to start working on,’” Bonsu said. “They just wanted to make sure that it was perfect when they launched it. When you do something at Hopkins you’ve got to do it right.”

Bonsu said that currently, there is no set date for the website’s launch, but she anticipates it will be announced to the entire Hopkins community once it is decided.