Web Sandbox

Brown.edu Rebuild Project Background & Goals

In Spring 2018, Brown University launched a major project to rebuild the brown.edu website. The project's goal is a unified web presence offering an outstanding, best-in-class user experience for Brown’s millions of digital constituents.

Every year, more than eight million individuals visit brown.edu and view the University’s webpages more than 40 million times. The brown.edu website consists of more than 100,000 webpages managed by decentralized web content editors working in departments across the institution. 

The Brown website currently runs on a range of technology platforms, including Drupal 6, 7 and 8 and WordPress. Some web content management systems are hosted at Brown, while others are hosted on cloud platforms. The last comprehensive redesign of brown.edu took place in 2010.

Goals for the Rebuilt Brown.edu

  • Create a cohesive experience for visitors browsing the site.
  • Greatly reduce the fragmented nature of Brown’s current web presence, and make it easier to find information.
  • Have a compelling, usable and navigable visual design.
  • Have a highly flexible and modular visual design that reflects the University’s visual identity guidelines.
  • Provide a unified content management system (CMS) that supports Brown’s content strategy.
  • Increase capacity and functionality for units at Brown to showcase the distinctiveness of their programs.
  • Facilitate content sharing across University websites.
  • Improve integration with calendars, maps, social media and other platforms.
  • Create long-term capacity for delivering content aligned with user interest.
  • Create a Drupal 8 platform for building websites that supports continuous improvement and sustained success.
  • Be easy to use for content editors.
  • Employ best practices related to SEO, analytics and content personalization.
  • Simplify the support, security and technical maintenance of the site.
  • Meet federal requirements for accessibility.