Building a More Connected DU.edu Experience

The University of Denver’s web transformation project is about more than redesigning webpages. It is an opportunity to create a more engaging, accessible, and strategically aligned digital experience that better reflects how people engage with DU today — and how they will engage with the university in the future. 

For prospective students and families, the website is often their first meaningful interaction with the university. In a lot of ways, it is our front door to the world. For current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners, it is one of the primary ways they navigate university systems, locate resources, access support, complete transactions, and manage their day-to-day interactions with DU. Increasingly, the web is not separate from the university experience — it is part of the experience. 

As DU continues advancing priorities connected to academic innovation, student support, and institutional agility, our digital ecosystem must evolve alongside those goals. 

The web transformation project focuses on improving the usability, structure, governance, accessibility, and long-term sustainability of DU’s web environment. This includes simplifying user journeys, reducing duplication, improving search and discoverability, strengthening content quality, and creating more consistent experiences. 

Within this work, the project recognizes that different areas across the university have distinct audiences, priorities, and identities. The goal is not uniformity for uniformity’s sake. Instead, the work is centered on creating greater continuity across DU’s digital experience while still allowing units and departments to communicate what makes them unique. 

This project also reflects a broader shift happening across higher education. Prospective students increasingly expect university websites to help them answer their biggest questions quickly and clearly: Do you have the program I want? Can I afford it? Will I be accepted? Can I see myself as part of this community? Those answers matter because students are not evaluating institutions in isolation — they are comparing programs, experiences, costs, and outcomes across many universities at once. The digital experience plays a major role in whether students feel informed, confident, and connected enough to continue exploring DU. 

In parallel, the university’s digital ecosystem must also effectively support the people already here. Meeting these evolving expectations and needs requires more than strong technology alone. It requires thoughtful collaboration across the university to create digital experiences that are clear, accessible, useful, and aligned with the needs of the communities they serve. 

That collaboration has been one of the most important parts of the project so far and will continue to be. 

Teams across the university — including communications professionals, content owners, faculty, enrollment teams, student support staff, IT professionals, and administrators — have contributed expertise, feedback, and strategic insight early in this process. The project depends on the knowledge distributed across campus because the people closest to students and users often understand their needs most clearly. As part of these efforts, the project is also focused on improving the day-to-day content management experience for internal teams through a more intuitive and flexible drag-and-drop page-building environment. The goal is not only to improve the external user experience, but also to make content creation, updates, and ongoing site management more efficient and sustainable across the university. 

Many aspects of the work happening now are foundational, but the next phase will become increasingly visible across the university. Efforts around information architecture, messaging, content strategy, UX/UI, and design are up next. At the same time, important behind-the-scenes work continues around governance, accessibility, analytics strategy, content standards, and platform optimization. Together, these efforts are intended to create a stronger and more sustainable digital foundation. 

As the project continues moving forward, this page will serve as a central location for updates, progress highlights, timelines, and opportunities for campus engagement. Ongoing partnership and collaboration across the university will remain essential as we continue shaping a more connected and audience-centered digital experience for the DU community.