Our platform periodically undergoes large-scale technical overhauls. Not only are these stages an opportunity for us to build a framework for executing on our vision of a world in which fairness and equal rights are respected in higher ed, they are also exciting moments for us to test our mettle in tech affairs.

We’re wrapping up an internal development marathon that we’ve been running since November involving several new systems that are all tied together. We’ll be announcing these changes in a series as we move them from a test environment to a live environment. The first major change is our website, which we overhauled over the weekend.

“Just the right amount of a little too much” is a phrase we often find ourselves using. For example, you’ll notice the website has a more layered look than previously, especially when viewed on desktop (examples: database page, Our Values page).

We wanted to move away from generic visuals that didn’t quite capture the essence of what we do, which is creating data-driven resources to promote change. Just about every core page was either redesigned from the ground up or enhanced in some way.

We also wanted to give slightly more prominence to social media and published writings, both of which are more prominently displayed on the front page. We also rearranged the News & Articles page to make browsing and selecting from a larger range of articles easier.

The aesthetics will be the most visible change since the page directory is the same, but the most impactful changes are under the hood. This redesign will permit integrations that were not previously possible and will be the subject of upcoming announcements.

While we are always excited about moving forward, data security is always our highest priority. We’ve invested in security tools to further protect user and site data by expanding our levels of encryption and modifying core site code. This change will also help ward our site against performance issues, among other things.

We welcome your feedback with this redesign. That’s it for this preview. Please expect more soon.