Give your feedback on three proposed designs for Libraries’ new homepage
A VCU Libraries working group is redesigning the Libraries’ homepage. The working group consists of employees across Libraries’ departments and is using surveys, design tests and interviews with students, faculty and others to develop a new a homepage that aligns closely with user needs.
VCU Libraries serves diverse users across both campuses and in the Richmond community. The focus of the new homepage will be on making it most useful to those with the least familiarity with academic libraries, who might need the most help navigating and familiarizing themselves with the services, spaces, resources and programs offered.
The working group has developed three proposed designs. These so-called “wireframes” are low-fidelity, early-stage renderings of a web page that positions elements on the page. Now feedback on these potential designs is invited. Your ideas will help develop a final proposed design to create a fresh, new page scheduled to launch in summer 2026.
Below are the three proposed wireframes, with some context and explanation about each. At the bottom of the screen is a link to a form to share your ideas.
Wireframe 1)
Wireframe 1 features a calendar view for happenings in the library, something that was mentioned in a number of user interviews. It also collapses “chat” and “Ask Us” into a single link that produces a pop up that gives options for chat or email, since users expressed some confusion over the difference between chat and Ask Us (we also added the word “live” because undergraduates especially were surprised and very pleased to learn that the Libraries’ chat is not a chatbot, but staffed by real humans!) This is an element we’ve kept across the wireframes.
Wireframe 2)
Wireframe 2 adds a “did you know?” section that will be a curated fact about something the libraries offer that users may or may not know about or a service or resource that we particularly want to feature at a given time. Items here will likely rotate out once a month.
Wireframe 3)
Wireframe 3 will feature a single image as a background for the search box, something evocative of the libraries that will also be changed out periodically, as in something from our collections, a space in one of the buildings, etc. It also features “quick links” based on user top tasks and items identified as most impactful or interesting to students in our user interviews. It also combines the news and blog feeds under “newsworthy” and events and exhibits under “happenings.”
So, what do you think of the proposed designs so far? Please let the work group know via this form: What do you think of the wireframes for a redesigned VCUL homepage?
Categories News, Technology, What I'm Working On