Preparing for Fall 2023

[Craig Biles]

We haven't gotten together in a long while and I miss catching up with all of you. After the MS Outlook migration settled down, I wanted to reach out and touch base to help us prepare our websites for the upcoming semester.

COVID-19 Links

Many of you may be aware but I wanted to communicate to the web managers on campus about this change. The website, covid.uncg.edu, has been retired and that URL has been forwarded to spartansafe.uncg.edu. If you have links in your website to either covid.uncg.edu or update.uncg.edu (our issues management website that we originally utilized for COVID info) please remove these links or correct them to point to Spartan Safe.

Mobile vs. Desktop

Please keep in mind your user-base and know what size screen they are predominantly using to access your information. One area of concern is that we have had some inquiries from people who have tried to utilize a larger than standard font for an h-tag. Often, that font does not present well in mobile screens. In the UNCG NGWP theme we've tried to accommodate adjustments for smaller screens but if you override the standard settings you may get undesirable results. Always be sure to preview your page layouts in at least desktop and mobile screen sizes to be sure that your page is behaving the way you might expect.

Twitter (for now) Feeds

Monitor your Twitter feeds on your website closely. In a move by Twitter to require viewers to be logged in, we have noticed a lot of feeds on websites around campus are no longer working. They often present "Nothing to See Here...Yet." along with a login option. We have not heard if WordPress is trying to workaround this change from the social media channel but with another of their products, Jetpack, they have announced that there will no longer be any Twitter connectivity. There is a change of the name of the channel to X so if you leave your feed in place be sure your headings and descriptions are accurate.

Next Generation Web Presence

We are making good progress with our rollout of the new look and theme. To date we have rolled out over 30 sites in NGWP and more are coming each week. If you are responsible for a website and want to get in the queue so that you can make our end-of-year deadline please complete this form on webassets.uncg.edu.

NGWP Design System

Speaking of webassets.uncg.edu, if you have not visited this site then you should. It is full of actual examples of blocks available in the NGWP theme as well as great links to additional information in the Resources tab. Check it out.

If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks.

M. Craig Biles

University Digital Design and

Mobile Communications Developer

Information Technology Services and

University Communications Depts.

uc.uncg.edu

its.uncg.edu

mcb...@uncg.edu