#PSEWEB

Published on April 29, 2014

Below is a guest blog post by our colleagues at Olds College. Enjoy! -Jane

Olds College recently launched its all new, fully responsive website in February. The updated Olds College website was designed to be easier to navigate, while implementing sophisticated, modern visual design and leading edge technology.  We recognize the importance of the website in today’s world as a key marketing tool.  Our website is designed to be used from the moment someone discovers Olds College, throughout their career as a student, past graduation, into their post Olds College life, as an entrepreneur, member of the work force, alumnus, and potentially, as a donor.

Realizing the need to update design and style for the website, Olds College also recognized the need to increase the functionality, to be fully responsive to all browsers and mobile devices. The updated Olds College website is fully responsive to all formats, which was necessary due to the variety of tools people now use to browse the internet.  The new website is designed to work in all major browsers, on any modern device that our students, alumni, prospective students, faculty, stakeholders or community members may be using. The responsive site reconfigures itself for optional viewing on any device.  One site, one set of content to manage, with multiple displays.

As our mobile traffic increased in the last year, with 16% of our 2013 website visits made on mobile devices, and an additional 10% being made on tablets, Olds College needed to respond to the changing demands within our marketplace.  These numbers are set to grow exponentially with the introduction of our Connect Your Passion initiative, which includes increased bandwidth campus-wide  allowing Olds College to have more bandwidth per student than any other college in Canada, integration of iPad technology into our programs, and the first gamified college course in Canada, The Spirit of Entrepreneurship.  You can learn more about the Connect Your Passion initiative at http://www.oldscollege.ca/about-us/Initiatives/connect-your-passion/index.
With the implementation of our new Content Management system (Cm1 by Percussion), we have built in workflow management and shared assets, which allows more staff members across campus to have increased control over content on their department’s webpages.  They can update webpages themselves, always keeping the web content up-to-date and fresh.  There is no need to have a web developer doing content updates anymore, staff can push their own changes live, out to the site at any time, with lead communications team members are notified to keep tabs on what is going live on our website.

The newly designed Olds College website is not only responsive to the needs of today’s user, but because of its functionality and efficiency, will help Olds College achieve our institutional goals, while providing a positive experience for all users.

The new Olds College website can be found at www.oldscollege.ca.