Website navigation and sitemap structure
The website menu or sitemap is driven by the new website’s information architecture and managed by the Communications Office.
Decisions about the order of content were made during the discovery process of the new website. In partnership with iFactory, our information architecture was built based on feedback we received from town hall and small group sessions, input from the Dean’s leadership group and ad hoc new website committee, and analyzing page traffic from the old website. To follow best practices, making any changes to the order of content in the menu must follow a similar path of scrutiny and institutional/stakeholder buy-in.
Please feel free to reach out to the web team if you have any questions about the menu or order of content on the website.
The website has menus in the following locations listed below. Menu locations work in sync with a page’s URL structure. So any item in the menu must have a designed parent page.
Primary Navigation
This is the main navigation menu of the website. Top level pages represent the most strategic content and audiences of the website -- prospective students, community members / information about the VCUarts community, and arts research and innovation.
As the user goes more than one level into the menu, subsequent choices are transposed on the lefthand sidebar.
Secondary Navigation
The secondary navigation is a link to single pages or pages with limited child pages that are strategically important to VCUarts such as information about the institution and its leadership, donor and alumni information and our events calendar.
Footer navigation
The footer navigation contains content that is not directly intended for external audiences or is otherwise not as high profile as the content listed above. This includes policies and procedures, resources for current staff and students, and legal disclaimers.
