Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU

GALLATIN TODAY Landing Page:
Creation of landing page for Gallatin Today, an online magazine published bi-annually.

Audience:
Alumni, NYU Gallatin Students, Faculty
Objectives:
• Design a landing page which allows users to access information with ease and encourages future engagement.
• Create intuitive and clear navigation which covers overall content from a category, top down approach.
• Minimize user fatigue and meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

My approach to the design of a new landing page for Gallatin Today began by looking at current and previous issues so that I could discern the overall categories for navigation and content. I am using a top down approach; one that funnels information from broad topics to more narrowly focused ones.

Each subtopic will be represented as submenus items featured on lower level pages. The main menu will remain a constant as users navigate the site so that they don’t get lost on lower level pages. Aesthetically the landing page will benefit from the artwork of each new magazine cover. The cover of each current issue of Gallatin Today will appear as the primary focus on the landing page. Users can navigate to previous issues which will be featured by their respective covers and publish date on a page of their own.

Inspiration is drawn from several award winning university alumni magazine websites such as: University of Toronto and Boston University. I also looked at various European university websites such as University of Amsterdam and University of London.

The aim for the architectural aesthetic of Gallatin Today is to keep the landing page and lower level pages clear, concise and accessible. At all times there will be a link to NYU Accessibility resources. Each page will be checked so that it meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as outlined by the NYU Digital Accessibility Checklist. All content will be categorized, meta tagged and stored using proper file naming conventions. This process will also be an integral part of SEO strategy for the new site. I also see this as one of the most important challenges in creating the new site.