Almost twenty years after the first Brandeis University website launched in 1997, the University has unrolled a new, mobile-friendly, redesigned version of its website’s homepage and most frequented pages, Interim Senior Vice President for Communications Judy Glasser announced in an email to the community yesterday.

“This launch is the first phase of a larger Brandeis website redesign project that includes redesigning the standard university templates,” Glasser wrote in the email, which was co-signed by Director of Digital Communications Audrey Griffin-Goode and Associate Director of Digital Communications Carrie Simmons.

In addition to being mobile friendly, the redesign is also more accessible to visitors with disabilities, according to the email. The new templates feature larger fonts, wider integration of social and multimedia and a greater emphasis on enhanced search engine optimization, the email said.

The University has long used Hannon Hill’s Cascade Server, a content management system used by over 200 other colleges and universities, according to a website for the redesign project. According to the website, the project has been in the works since June 2015, with the first phase of redesigned templates — the top-level pages — going live yesterday.

However, the website notes, the University has approximately 22,000 live pages in the current standard templates, all of which will be phased over to the redesigned templates throughout 2017 and 2018.

By building new templates in the server, the website notes, the University will “significantly improve our website without burdening hundreds of web editors with learning a new CMS.”

—Abby Patkin