Website Redesign Services

The Vendor is required to provide for a comprehensive redesign of our institutional website.
- Project is to create a modern, user-friendly, and accessible digital platform that reflects our brand, enhances the user experience for all audiences, and supports our strategic priorities.
- Must improve navigation, accessibility, and mobile responsiveness while ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulatory requirements such as WCAG 2.1, FERPA, and data security best practices.
- The redesigned website should serve as a dynamic communication and engagement tool for prospective students, current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the community.
- The new website must offer an engaging, intuitive, and mobile-first user experience, prioritizing prospective and current students while also serving parents, alumni, faculty, staff, employers, and community members. 
- Consistent navigation, visual hierarchy, and branding should be applied sitewide, with flexible design elements to accommodate unique sub-branding needs across departments, colleges, and special programs such as graduate studies and continuing education.
- The homepage will serve as the university’s digital front door and must incorporate multimedia storytelling—images, video, and social integrations—that resonate emotionally with users while maintaining optimal performance and accessibility. 
- Expected to recommend homepage features and interactive components that elevate university’s narrative and brand.
- Propose and develop web templates with intentional variations that allow for personalization without compromising consistency. 
- Graphics, photography, and video must enhance—not distract from—the content and core messaging.
- adapt its visual and technical design in accordance with this guide, incorporating the university’s established design system and branding elements to deliver a bright, welcoming, and forward-looking digital experience.
- The redesigned website should:
•    Elevate university’s brand identity and storytelling capabilities
•    Improve the user experience for key audiences, especially prospective students
•    Reflect university’s diverse programs and community
•    Enhance functionality, accessibility, and content governance
•    Align with enrollment, reputation, and institutional impact goals
- The website should prioritize these groups:
•    Prospective students (undergraduate, graduate, transfer, online, post-traditional)
•    Current students
•    Faculty and staff
•    Alumni and donors
•    Parents, employers, and community partners
- Strategy & Discovery
•    Stakeholder and user interviews
•    Content audit and analytics review
•    Competitive and aspirational website analysis
•    Information architecture analysis and redesign
•    Brand messaging refresh, including:
o    Telling the state story throughout the site
o    university’sWorks and career outcomes emphasis
o    Visual storytelling of student experiences
o    Reworking the President & Leadership/About Us sections
- UX & Visual Design
•    Redesign of homepage with visual storytelling emphasis (video, dynamic content, emotional resonance)
•    Consolidated, clear design across all divisions
•    Mobile-first, responsive design
•    New visual language adapted from established styles: bright, optimistic, modern, inclusive
•    Consistent templates for storytelling (articles), program pages, landing pages, and interior pages
•    Stronger integration of:
o    Video modules, including options for vertical video
o    Accessible multimedia galleries
o    Social content (with accessibility compliance)
•    Student profile and success story content blocks
•    Clarify admissions pathways for undergraduate and continuing studies prospective students
•    New visual treatment for events
•    A clear vision for university’sWorks section
- Technical Features
•    CMS: Drupal 11
•    Integration with key tools and platforms:
o    CRM (Element451)
o    Chatbot (BoltBot)
o    Calendar system (Master Calendar)
o    Acalog
o    SearchStax
o    YouTube (with options for vertical and responsive embeds)
- Content & Content Strategy
•    Complete content audit, governance plan, and updated site taxonomy
•    Updated academic program pages with flexible content blocks and integration with Acalog widget
•    Story-rich, SEO-optimized, student-centered content
o    Develop content for homepage, landing pages, and top 20 visited pages
o    Refresh photography and video for homepage, landing pages, and top 20visited pages (if applicable)
•    Writers' tools: article templates, image handling cleanup.

- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Pre-Bid Conference Date: September 16, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: September 19, 2025