October 2024 Web Updates

In our recent meeting, we covered three key areas:

• A review of the latest theme release (v4.6)
• Upcoming discovery and user research for new features
• Current projects and development work

Theme Release v4.6 Overview

The latest theme release includes several exciting new features:

• New Analytics Dashboard Widget: Easily access your site’s analytics reports from the dashboard. Check out this sample report to see the included metrics.
• Custom Post Type Filters: Dynamically populate filter options for Custom Post Type (CPT) archives, with control over how many items are displayed before a “Show More” option appears in the sidebar.
• Gravity Forms Slate Integration: Launching in late October, this feature allows administrators and content maintainers to create Gravity Forms that feed data directly into Slate for student recruitment.
• Slate Embed Form Expansion: The Slate Embed Form is now available for Posts and Events in addition to Pages.
• Day of Giving 2024 Block Pattern (Pro and Premium Tiers): A new block pattern highlighting Day of Giving 2024 has been added under Events. Previous block patterns have also been reorganized into updated categories.
• Vertical Video Block (Premium Tier): This block, previously exclusive to NC State’s main and news sites, is now available for all users.
• Compact Masthead Customization (Premium Tier): The Compact Masthead’s navigation bar color can now be changed to red, giving users more branding flexibility.

You can find the full release notes in the v4.6 announcement.

Discovery and User Research Efforts

We’re continually working to discover and develop new features, balancing great ideas with available resources and expected usage. Our process involves user research, prototyping, and gathering feedback to help us prioritize what to build.

Smart Search

We’re updating the university’s branding utility bar, which appears at the top of most NC State websites, to make it easier to find people, places, resources, and websites. The first version of Smart Search has been launched in beta across several sites, and we’re gathering user feedback to improve it.

News Post Improvements

It’s been a few years since we last reviewed our news post design and functionality. Through the rest of 2024, we’ll be collecting feedback from University Communications and Marketing, as well as other campus stakeholders, to identify areas for improvement.

We’ll also be conducting surveys through October, with brainstorming sessions scheduled for November to dive deeper into potential updates. Stay tuned for more details on our findings and next steps.

Other Discovery Projects

In December and January, we’ll be focusing on the development of a new brand website slated for a March or April launch. We’re also planning a project on privacy and cookie consent management.

Current Work

Our three-week sprints aim to strike a balance between long-term improvements, new features, and ongoing bug fixes.

Long-term Improvements

We’re making enhancements to the theme’s design system to ensure a consistent user experience and simplify the development of future features. This project will span several months, starting with typography and icon updates and concluding with improvements to layout grids and spacing.

Quick Wins

We’re adding “expand all” and “collapse all” functionality to the Accordion block, making it easier for users to search through accordion content. We’re also refining the code to resolve front-end issues that occur when accordion items are duplicated.

Additionally, anchor points can now be added to most blocks, allowing users to create jump links to specific sections of a page.

With the transition from iModules to GiveCampus for online giving, we’re updating the Giving Form block. This fall, we’ll remove the gift amount input field, as GiveCampus does not support passing specific dollar amounts. The switch to GiveCampus is scheduled for January 2025. After that, existing Giving Form blocks will point to the university’s main giving form instead of fund-specific forms.

In November, we’ll introduce a new Button Spotlight Block as the preferred method for linking to giving forms. It will also be versatile enough to serve other call-to-action needs.

Slate Integration for Gravity Forms

The new Slate integration for Gravity Forms is now available. This feature allows for more visually sophisticated ways to capture prospective student interest, serving as an alternative to embedded Slate forms, especially for landing pages.

Table of Contents Block

Finally, we’re starting development on a Table of Contents block, with more details coming in November.