The Office of Communications has sent general announcements to the broader web community about T4 and will send a school-wide email after the public launch on August 14. However, we are relying on each departmental website editor to internally communicate with their department about the project and upcoming changes.
After reviewing the T4 website and making any desired changes, we encourage you to communicate with your department to let them know about the public launch and give them an opportunity to provide you with additional edits and feedback. To help with this communication, we’ve created a sample email:
New Yale School of Medicine Web Templates and Signage
We are writing to share information about upcoming changes to YSM websites and digital signage.
The Yale School of Medicine (YSM) Office of Communications has been working with the firm AllofUs since July 2018 to redesign the school’s web templates and digital signs. The goal was to create a modern template that would best represent the school’s iconic education system and cutting-edge research.
The target date for the new website template to go public is Wednesday, August 14. The new digital signage is already live in many locations around the medical school campus.
Creating the Design
Last summer, the Office of Communications invited representatives from across the school to participate in a series of full-day workshops to help define the school’s web audience and clarify the brand, which became the basis of the visual design language created for the website template and digital signage. More than 50 stakeholders from across the school, including the dean, department chairs, faculty, staff, alumni, and students, were also interviewed as part of this process.
After establishing the design language, AllofUs hosted another series of workshops to present three competing design paths. The YSM Communications Office used this feedback to settle on the design path.
Website Template Transition
The school’s web community has been involved in every step of the transition process. Department staff members whose roles routinely include updating websites are working to ensure a smooth transition from the current web template (T3), to the new template (T4).
On July 17, web editors were able to begin reviewing and making updates to the new T4 websites. Because of the design changes, some website pages changes may require edits. For example, in T4, there will be less capacity for text/images on the left-hand side of websites. As a result, content currently in that space will get shifted, and there may be a need to reposition it. The review period will provide web editors a chance to make any necessary edits to ensure our web pages look as we want them to look when the sites go live.
While the change to the new template will create additional work in the short-term, the result will be better looking and easier to navigate websites. You can see the website in preview at: [insert link here].
Digital Signage
The digital signage is in place in several locations around the medical school campus, such as the rotunda of 333 Cedar. The new screens feature calls to action to encourage people to touch them, and streamlined interactive views once a user engages. They include content ranging from the shuttle schedule to YSM news and calendar events. The Office of Communications team is looking for additional departments that would like digital signage screens in their space. You can read more information about digital signage here.
We are very excited about the new templates and look forward to working with you to ensure that they meet your needs. If you have questions, please contact me.