‘Gustavus Template’ Category

Website Template Changes

Today we’re launching some noticeable changes to the Gustavus website template. These updates were made to alleviate some issues that we noticed last year following the implementation of the new design. Primarily, these changes alter the look and functionality of the header and footer, so we’ll provide a brief explanation of each change below. Audience […]

Web Changes for Fall 2016

Last September we launched our new website. Since then, we’ve made numerous minor updates to improve the site’s performance, and to increase accessibility and usability. Larger issues were monitored throughout the academic year, and we’re now at a point where we can confidently address them. We’re primarily basing these changes on our analytics–aggregate data that […]

Webmail/GusMail links

We recently added a link to either Webmail or GusMail to your user menu. You can now click the user portrait that appears after signing in (button at the upper right corner of any Gustavus page) and have your current email service listed. If you’re a GusMail user (students), you’ll already be signed in to […]

Website Redesign Process

The Process Roughly ten months ago, we outlined a process to redesign the website and presented it to the administration, and later, to the community. We broke this process down into four distinct phases. Phase 1: Feedback and Idea Generation Phase 2: Organization and Research Phase 3: Design and Refinement Phase 4: Development and Production […]

Editing Pages is Easier

We’ve started the roll out of our new content management system, Concert, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks to our early adopters, we’ve caught several bugs and made numerous improvements. If you want to consider Concert for your website, just let us know. It’s easy, and everything happens right in your browser. We’ve […]

Help Us Redesign the Website

We’ll be working with the Office of Marketing and Communication in the upcoming months to completely overhaul the Gustavus website. Our goal is to accomplish this feat before September 2015, and we need your help to make this happen. If you have feedback about the current website template or the Gustavus homepage, we’d like to […]

Randomized Banner Order

The banners similar to the one on the Gustavus homepage now have the feature of being displayed randomly, while allowing certain ones to be displayed in order. For example, if there is a promotional banner that needs to be first, it will always appear first. All of the other banners will be randomly displayed after […]

New Colors

The Gustavus homepage's new colors The Gustavus website just got a new paint job. Gold and blue were chosen to better highlight our school colors (black and gold) and emphasize our Swedish heritage. With our sesquicentennial approaching, it seemed like perfect timing. This update also brings a small but nice additional feature for those of […]

Lazy AuxBox Makes Pages Load 22% Faster, Generate 75% Quicker

Many pages on the Gustavus website feature a section of auxiliary content that we like to call the AuxBox--the blue part at the bottom of the page that typically has events, news, and profiles. While we really like having this content on our pages, we noticed it took a fair amount longer for our server to generate pages which use the AuxBox.

Our New Mobile Website

Nobody had even heard of a smartphone when we first got the Internet at my house. Many websites were still designed with a web safe color palette of 216 colors and tiled backgrounds were the cool, new kid on the block. A MIDI and a scrolling marquee gave you street--or at least Internet--cred. In those days, the web was wild.