By Laura Fenton

The University of Memphis website homepage has a sleek new look.

“Redesigning the University’s website has been a high priority,” said Linda Bonnin, vice president for Communications, Public Relations and Marketing. “We are focusing the site back on student recruitment, and we’re incorporating some new technology into it.”

The most noticeable difference happens when resizing the webpage’s window.

“The big news is that it uses responsive design,” said Allecia Powell, U of M webmaster. “This means that the content will resize to fit the window or screen for any device so you can smoothly use the site anywhere.”

In addition, every page will have a top right-hand menu with links for commonly visited pages, such as the U of M libraries and myMemphis portal.

Prospective students, current students, faculty and staff should find the site more seamless to navigate thanks to the succinct menu bar across the center of the page. Frequently used pages are listed on the bottom portion of every webpage.

Information for “how to do business with us” is listed under the Business and Industry tab at the top portion of the page, Powell said. This is where information pertaining to employee education, faculty and staff recruiting, trademark information, U of M hosted professional conferences, and the U of M expert and consultant lists are located.

Within the U of M domain, there are five websites and more than 24,000 pages.

“We have many pages with lots of information for our online visitors,” Powell said. “The website redesign benefits everyone. No one has to weave through extensive menus to find the information anymore.”

All press releases and other media-related items are listed under the “Latest U of M News” box. This link is found at the bottom portion of each page within the rotating set of boxes. Other rotating boxes include links for recruitment, student applications and a tuition estimator.

The minimal text on each page means the internal upkeep of the sites will be easier.

“It’s going to be much simpler for departments to add new content on a regular basis since there is only one area to fill,” Powell said.

Departments are also encouraged to use keywords within the text to increase search engine optimization, which is the way search engines analyze the text of a page compared to the words a person types into the search menu.

All U of M pages will be updated to the new design by early 2014.