Project Hazard

A New Web Site...The Right Way

HCTC is excited and anticipating the launch of our new web site late this fall. Through a lot of hard work from a talented and committed team, we are confident that visitors will be able to find the information they want easier and faster.  This team will be working to freshen up content that works, rewrite content that doesn’t work, and come up with new content to fill the areas where it is needed. Even after the first one hundred pages go live, this web site will be ever evolving to meet the needs of our potential and current students.  With the new site, we will be creating a web presence that is easy to use, visually pleasing, and a much better representation of life at our college.

A Great Project Team

Of course, all of this work doesn't happen magically.  It's the result of dozens of hours of hard work by our committed project team.  However, we don't put in these hours simply to launch a new web site.  Rather, the hard work represents our fundamental commitment to impacting the lives of students and communities across the Commonwealth.  It's why we do what we do, and it's why we're excited for what our new web site will allow us to do in ways that we've never dreamed before.

The Final Result

What you'll see with the new HCTC website then is a site that:

  • Looks better because it employs research and best practices in web graphic design,
  • Is easier to navigate because it is founded on solid information architecture principles,
  • "Sounds" better, because much of the content has been rewritten in a style and tone that appeals to our audiences,
  • And is geared toward our primary audience: current and prospective students.

Excited?  Check back with us later this fall for a great new web site!

FAQs

When is the new site coming?

Right now, the plan is to launch the new web site later this fall. As we get closer to launch, we'll share more specific time line information.

Is everything on the Hazard web site going to be moved to the new web site at launch?

The simple answer? No. The first round of Sitecore implementation will focus on the top 100 pages of the web site. These are the most visited and most critical pages for our audiences. The goal of these initial launches is to lay the infrastructure for a much-improved web presence. It will take quite a bit longer to migrate the thousands of other pages on our web sites. Migration of other pages will happen over a period of many months, as training and migration planning are completed. These legacy pages will remain available however from the new web site, so our existing content will not simply disappear at launch.

Will I need to change my bookmarks/favorites?

You might have to. Content will be moving to different URLs (web addresses), so your bookmarks may change. We will attempt to automatically redirect as many old URLs as possible to the new ones, which should make this easier for you.

Is every college web site going to look just like Hazard?

Nope! Every site will have common branding elements so that all will be recognizable as part of the same KCTCS family--also, there is an approved System-wide set of design guidelines that will apply to every site.

Nonetheless, there is a great deal of flexibility within this framework. Each web site will have its own design that reflects local preferences and respects the unique identity of the college.

Ok, so who updates our new site?

As we launch our new web site, we will be providing the tools for people to become content owners and authors. Content owners and authors will be responsible for updating the sections of the site where they are an expert. That means that the people who best understand the content are the people who are updating in for our sites and that means the information on our sites is more accurate.