Working to improve the efficiency, navigation and aesthetics of Northwestern’s Web site, administrators will unveil a renovated home page in the next couple of months, said Alan Cubbage, vice president for university relations.

After a year of hard work and extensive research, the Web site (www.northwestern.edu) is being redone for the first time since 1998.

Cubbage had two words regarding the new design: “more purple.”

“It’s going to be a very different look,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

The current site’s color is white, featuring links to university pages and a picture of students in front of The Arch. The new site will replace the long-used image with a rotating library of pictures from all around campus.

In addition, the links will be reorganized, purple will dominate the page and NU’s new logo will be added. The layout also will accommodate a new section for campus news and an upcoming events calendar.

“People wanted timely information,” Cubbage said. “This will be a more timely page.”

Some of the less dramatic additions include an updated Ph directory and a footer on the bottom of the page that will recap the site’s contents with plain text links. The plain text footer will help visually impaired users to navigate the site, Cubbage said.

This project is overseen by University Relations and headed by Staci Roberts, NU’s director of Web communications. Roberts oversees a central Web steering committee with five sub-groups that meet on an ad-hoc basis.

Gathering feedback from users is the first step in rebuilding, Roberts said. The department interviewed students, faculty, staff, alumni and prospective students, and polled target groups with online surveys, she said.

The department also investigated usage records to better understand how people use the site, Roberts said.

“What people wanted first and foremost was a better search engine,” Roberts said. “They were extremely frustrated, and were forthright in demanding that it be improved.

“(Surveyed groups) were asking, ‘Why is it that when I search for a topic or a school, I get old (Northwestern) Observer articles?'” Roberts said.

The old search engine was primarily connected to the Observer’s server. The new engine, with software Cubbage called “infinitely improved,” is connected to more than 700 servers.

With the last significant update more than three years old, some students said they consider the site outdated.

“It is nowhere near the standard set by other universities,” said Ben Gross, a Weinberg freshman. “I’m glad they understood that it was time for a change.”