From the Nominator

In 2020, the University of Richmond launched, and initiated the rollout of, a comprehensive website redesign for all 150+ sites that comprise the university’s web ecosystem. The process began with the launch of an entirely reimagined main site, www.richmond.edu, in June. It continued throughout the remainder of 2020 (and into 2021) with the systematic and strategic rollout of the redesign to all university sites.

There are four key, interconnected goals for the redesign: 1) modernize the technological infrastructure; 2) comprehensively infuse the university’s websites with the university’s new brand direction and guidelines; 3) leverage analytics data to evolve the content and wayfinding strategy to provide a clearer and more impactful user experience, particularly for prospective undergraduates; and 4) reconfigure the infrastructure to comprehensively and systematically ensure stronger compliance with web accessibility guidelines.

The university’s web team entirely rebuilt the template system and retooled the content management system that drive Richmond’s fully centralized website platform, fundamentally reinventing and reinvigorating the strategies, tools, and technologies that drive the university’s sites. As a result, the payoff on the four goals for the redesign extends not only to the main university site, but also to every website within the university domain. 

This fully-centralized approach allows Richmond to proactively advance critical marketing communications priorities such as brand alignment, accessibility compliance, and consistency, and quality of a highly modern web user experience across the institution.

From the Judges

Overall, the website is clean and sharp. One can tell that they kept the student in mind when they created every aspect of this. It's very collegiate, with a touch of fun—as college should be. Prospective students would find this pleasurable to visit, and staff and current student would feel pride in the website. The nominal budget and all in-house production is impressive. To top it off, the analytics are proof of the well thought-out website. The overall nomination was quite impressive, and it was apparent that a lot of work and planning went into the website.