This week at our Downers Grove Campus, a third-party consultant is conducting focus groups of our interviewees, current students, faculty, and administrators about our public web site (www.midwestern.edu). We are asking people to evaluate our current site and offer their suggestions for improvements. The current site is probably about four or five years "old," so it is definitely time to reconsider its design, navigation, and features. Over the past two years, we have made some improvements, such as creating an improved virtual tour; simplifying the home page (with direct "clicks" to our degree programs at both campuses); adding InteractNow tools for accepted students; and, of course, piloting this blog.

One thing we know for sure we need to work on is InteractNow. We think it has great features, but we know we need to streamline some of data processing so things like the "Application Status Check" will run real-time off of the University's database. We also need to work on the login systems, so you don't have to remember several different login/password combinations to access our on-line features.

We'd also like to develop more new media elements, such as podcasts, student/faculty/alumni blogs, and video. If you have ideas, please let us know. You can post your comments to this blog or email us at communications@midwestern.edu. We want to create the site to meet your needs, and in order to do that, we need to know what you are most interested in. The challenge in web site design is that often things become outdated as soon as you launch them. Universities (particularly graduate health science schools) traditionally are fairly conservative and slow-moving institutions, so we can't be quite as daring as You Tube or MySpace. By the same token, we know those are sites our prospective students frequent.  

We'd love to hear from you. Really. Send us a note. And thanks in advance.