Reimagined HFC website, update #1

Update, November 2023:

T he HFC web team has been working for the past several months on refining the concept for a completely reimagined HFC website experience that will primarily be targeted toward incoming students.

The working title of this project is "Hawk Central." (Internal users can review a brief white paper on the HawkCentral concept here). Students are unapologetically at the center of this project. Older models of websites that try to address the needs of "all audiences" are fading into the background of a more focused, user-centric, targeted user experience. While other important website audiences (such as alumni, community partners, visitors, and HFC employees) will have content and services on the website, the core of our development of content, navigation, and the overall user experience (UX) will be students.

The marketing and communications team will provide periodic updates on this project on the Employee News website.

Progress on this project to date

Over the preceding months, we have:

• Clarified our core goals and principles.
• Held many focused discussions about how to bring the HawkCentral vision to life.
• Shared the vision with senior leadership.
• Talked informally to a number of HFC team members about the project and shared the white paper with them.
• Created, modified, rejected, and revised concepts for how best to proceed.
• Consulted with a global UX expert who has provided helpful guidance and who will continue to assist throughout the project.
• Developed the first of our data gathering tools (with help from IRBI), and begun to develop a plan for how we will evaluate and use the resulting data.
• Created a timeline and project plan.
• Conducted research on best practices and common trends.
• Began conducting primary research on student needs and expectations.

Data collection and project input

In September, we began seeking feedback from thousands of new HFC students, assessing their views of what the most important tasks are when they visit a website like ours.

There will be additional, targeted data collection efforts. All data collection efforts will be focused on acquiring actionable data that will help drive and modify the project.

We also plan to engage a small team of employee stakeholders whom we hope will provide additional perspectives and help us improve the project along the way. All interested members of the HFC community will be offered touchpoints at which you can engage with aspects of the project and provide additional input.

Our goal is to focus input/feedback/data on the core aspects of the project so it can be successfully developed and launched within a reasonable timeframe.

When will the new website launch?

Our current goal is to launch the site in the first half of 2024. There is a lot of work to do before we reach that point. And we know many of you will have questions along the way.

We ask for your collaboration and patience as we undertake this project. The project will necessarily mean that the core of the entire web team's efforts be focused on this redevelopment. We will keep the trains running on other projects, but we might need to phase other projects or change the timelines. Some of the projects that come to us will be part of the new website redevelopment project.

We will continue to provide brief updates which will hopefully help answer your questions as they arise, and give you an insider's view of the project as we work through it.

If you have questions in the near term, please contact communications@hfcc.edu.

Thanks in advance for your collegiality as we work to modernize and streamline our website experience for our critical audiences.