Welcome to the New Smith.edu

Change can be hard. We’re excited to have launched Smith’s newly redesigned website with enhanced accessibility, easier navigation, and a refreshed design to match the spirit of Smith—with a sense of community front and center—but recognize that it may take some getting used to.

Refer to this page for information on the new navigation, exactly which accessibility features are being improved, the ways in which the core website content has been rearranged—and where it hasn’t—and exciting new design features.

Get Involved

Submit a Profile

At the heart of the new website is the concept of community. As a vibrant, diverse place to work, live, and learn, Smith’s culture is one of curiosity. Our new homepage will feature four rotating profiles—a current student, a staff member, a faculty member, and an alum—highlighting various aspects of our community. We’d love to feature you!

Sign up for User Testing

This is a website for everyone, so we want it to work for everyone. In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out details on targeted user testing of the new site. Sign up today to be included.

Give Us Your Feedback

We want to know what you think! Fill out a quick feedback form discussing the new organization, design, accessibility, and more. This will help us ensure the website not only represents a holistic Smith experience, but functions in ways that are most helpful to you.

Dive In

This is just a small sample of the flexibility, creativity, and usability that our new website has to offer. Almost each component is customizable, allowing us to showcase information in a number of ways. Get the scoop on the new organization, navigation, accessibility, and design.

We hope you love the new site as much as we do.

Organization

With a keen eye toward user experience, the new Smith.edu utilizes a new way of organizing information. The new primary navigation items—Discover Smith, Academics, Admission & Aid, Your Campus, and News & Events—together serve a distinct purpose in directing you to the information you’re after. Some will seem familiar, and other items are brand new. Learn about what you can expect to find in each place.

Discover Smith

Smith in Action
History & Traditions
President Sarah Willie-LeBreton
Visit the Campus
Governance
Contact Smith

Academics

Programs & Courses
Our Approach to Learning
Applied Learning & Research
Faculty Directory
Academic Calendar
Registrar
Class Deans
Provost/Dean of the Faculty
Study Abroad

Admission & Aid

Apply to Smith
Tuition & Aid for Applicants
Aid for Current Students
Visits, Interviews & Programs
For Parents & Families
For School Counselors
Life After Smith: Career Outcomes
Viewbook

Your Campus

Residence Life
Dining & Menus
Community
Offices & Services
Health & Wellness
Clubs & Organizations
Student Government Association
Athletics
For New Students
SmithArts

News & Events

All News
Events
Performing Arts
Smith Alumnae Quarterly

Navigation

The design of the navigation will depend on where you are in the site. With ease of use in mind, we hope the newly redesigned navigation improves user experience sitewide.

Primary Navigation

Your top-level—or primary navigation—functions as a simple drop-down menu. Once you’ve landed on a page, it will indicate where you are with a green semicircle.

Old Site

The old primary navigation obscured the page you were on when you clicked a menu item.

New Site

More user friendly, the new primary navigation is sleek and offers you insight into which section you’re already in.

Secondary Navigation

Your secondary navigation—which you can expect to find as you navigate to subpages—differs the most from Smith’s current site. What was once a vertical menu on the right-hand side of a page will now appear horizontally underneath the page’s header or banner image. Drop-down menus continue to function here, to get you into sub-subpages. If a page has enough menu items, you’ll see “MORE” appear on the very right-hand side of the navigation. Use this to scroll to see more items.

Old Site

On the old site, you had to click into a secondary navigation menu item to see its subpages.

New Site

In the new site, you can quickly browse subpages by clicking the caret next to a secondary navigation menu item.

Accessibility

The new smith.edu takes our accessibility features to the next level.

Standardized Components

With standardized components—each type of content you’ll see on the site will be templated—screen-readers and other accessibility tools will be able to interpret and translate website content without issue.

Fixed-Width Text

Text blocks on the new website adhere to accessibility best practices by limiting how much of a page they span. With narrower columns of text, you can read dense information with ease.

Tested Color Combinations

Each possible color combination on the new website has been built with accessibility in mind—they all pass contrast tests, ensuring users with visual impairments such as various degrees of colorblindness can interact with our content.

Design

The new Smith.edu features a sleek, clean design with occasional bold pops of color. New elements allow us to display information in exciting ways and get to the heart of the content. Check out some highlights.

Infographics

Featuring slight animation upon mouseover, our new infographics display statistics and other information in eye-catching ways.

22,677

files migrated

2,820

primary pages migrated

1,009

profiles migrated

In the Spotlight

Extremely customizable, spotlight banners will be featured throughout the site to get eyes on the most important bits of content.

Spotlights can have 1 link Or 2 (or none!)

This is just one example of many different quote styles we have to choose from on the new site. Use these to add personalization to your webpages.

The College Relations Webteam

Calling Things Out

True to their name, callouts function to get information across to you in a simple and sleek yet effective way. With customizable text, you can use

Headers

bulleted lists

numbered lists

and more in callouts.