School of Architecture Web Site is a Winner

By Grant Ullrich, Team Leader, Architecture Web Re-Design Project

The School of Architecture’s Web site recently received the 2005 Cool Web Sites Award for Content from the campus Webmasters. The award was one of four awards announced and presented at the annual Webmasters’ Forum on Wednesday, April 27, at the Illini Union. Selah Peterson, the School’s Webmaster, and Grant Ullrich, Team Leader of the Architecture Web Re-Design Project, accepted the award on behalf of the School. A plaque, recognizing the achievement is on display in the Director’s office. Cool Sites Award winners were selected by a panel of experienced judges based on nominations submitted by members of the Webmaster listserv. The School of Architecture site was chosen from a strong field of competitors. The School of Architecture’s Web site was previously a runner-up in the Design category for the 2004 Cool Sites Awards.

The judges noted that they were particularly impressed with the depth and breadth of content made available for both internal and external audiences, but Why Illinois?, the online presentation for prospective students was their favorite aspect of the School of Architecture site. Why Illinois? provides a colorful and informative overview of the School and its programs, developed for prospective students and their families. Why Illinois? was introduced this past spring and has been generating a lot of web traffic.

The improved Web site, in general, and Why Illinois?, specifically, may be one factor behind the architectural studies program’s increased admissions to acceptances yield in a year when most undergraduate programs on campus experienced declines. The M. Arch program also saw a record number of applications this spring for fall 2005 admissions. It is hoped that the Web site will become an increasingly important tool in alumni relations as well as recruiting.

The current School of Architecture Web site began to take shape in a seminar led by then interim director Michael Andrejasich in the spring of 2003. The seminar participants: graduate students Matt Booma and Craig Carter, and undergraduate Grant Ullrich, studied web design best practices, analyzed the web sites of other architecture programs and professional firms, and performed an assessment of current and potential functions of the School’s website. Preliminary designs were developed and presented to the School community in spring 2003 for review and comment.

Based on feedback from the preliminary designs, Grant Ullrich and David J. Lillie refined the design concept and began coding and production for a working version of the new site design. A test version was launched in November, 2003, and the redesign went live in February, 2004. Web content is continuously being reviewed, updated, and added, but the site was substantially completed in August 2004. Why Illinois? a web-based presentation for prospective students and their families was added in spring 2005. The next major update planned is a gallery of student work.

This is the second year in a row that a unit of the College of Fine and Applied Arts has won a Cool Web Sites Award; the School of Music won a People’s Choice Award in 2004. Considering that there are more than 300 Web sites in the uiuc.edu domain, and only 4 awards given each year, this is quite an accomplishment. When notified of the School of Architecture’s award, Shelli Drummond Stine, associate director of development for communications in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, observed, “as the Internet becomes an increasingly important tool for recruitment and advancement, it's good to know that we have a model for excellence already in place.”

Other winners of 2005 Cool Web Sites Awards:

Design: The College of Business www.business.uiuc.edu
Programming: Web Services’ WebTools www.webtools.uiuc.edu (requires UIUC login)
People’s Choice: The Institute for Genomic Biology www.igb.uiuc.edu