Web Makeover Docs

Student Financial Services (SFS)

Stakeholder: Kim Downs

Web Makeover Contact:  Jai Shankar

• SFS (Financial Aid) needs own place on home page (independent of Admissions)
• Keep web site intuitive
  -- if interested in Financial Aid, web site should help prospective/parent/student to continue their inquiry and information gathering
  -- draw people to the Application links  (or if arrive at Application page/form, provide options to get to other related information/areas of most relevance to a financial aid applicant)
  -- good to build links to related areas (book store, language schools) depending on interest
• Need to have info (in general) kept up-to-date
• Keep web site "active" - needs to look like things are happening at Midd
  -- update color schemes, fonts to draw attention to key information
• Want to be able to "push" updates to selected students (portal)
• Design for different users (parents different from students in how they use)
• Need relevant search results
• The large blue margins disappear and our viewers would see a full-screen.  Much more room for content - it seems this may just be a feature of program/software as a number of other college sites have this margin. see the margin on www.bowdoin.edu
• The link-tabs in the inside margin also disappear and are replaced with "boxes" that can be shifted, enlarged, reduced and link to the "content" areas below the line.
• A good example of the full-screen and what all that extra content space can do is www.stanford.edu
• This site has a nice feature on the home page "show expanded menus" right under the top-tabs.  We may want a top-tab to be 'costs and aid' and the drop-down directs  L/S, B/L, and first-yr apps get right to their interest.
• This site has a nice financial aid homepage....love the calendar on the side....... http://www.stanford.edu/dept/finaid/
• This same site is also a good example of 'understanding and paying your bill".  As you click a little deeper on this site  -  you reach a nice-looking "student financial services" site. Might be an outsourced site, like Overture     http://fingate.stanford.edu/students/ great  I-phone-like boxes.
• We liked the video presentation right on the home page of www.princeton.edu We might have something like this on our fin/aid homepage
• A nice feature would be ' the home page knows where you are clicking in from'  and sets out front and center your area of interest. e.g. you've been in L/S reading about the School in Italy and when you click fin/aid homepage,  it shows you L/S fin/aid interest items front and center.  .If you've been in the traditional admissions area and click on Fin/aid home page, there's nothing about L/S fin/aid stuff but first-year app stuff is front and center, with videos, calendars, calculators, and examples of aid packages.