University Calendar 2.0

After countless whiteboard sessions, extensive usability testing and a complete redesign, the Web Communications team is proud to announce the release of FIU’s new University Calendar.  One of the most noticeable additions is the “Featured” section, which highlights hand-picked events that are of particular interest to the FIU community. This section includes a relevant image and an extended view of the featured event’s details. For calendar entries to be considered for the “Featured” section, they must include an image that measures exactly 330 pixels wide by 136 pixels high and is no larger than 40 KB.

“This calendar is more student-centered than previous versions,” says Matt Herzberger, director of Web Communications. “In addition to the default view of all entries, it allows users to filter the calendar by ‘deadlines’ or ‘events.’ The new calendar also places more emphasis on the categories, such as Academics and Student Life, allowing users to customize the types of events they want to view.”

The redesigned calendar can now auto-filter events by week, month, year and – best of all – by semester.

Inspirations for the design and user interface came from other university calendars like Wayne State University, UCLA, Washtenaw Community College, insightful beta-test user feedback and more than a few head-butting sessions among team members. The calendar includes social media sharing, RSS feeds of individual calendars, iCal downloads for the entire calendar or just specific events.

Think of this calendar as a newly redesigned car: Andre Oliveira, the developer, built the engine; Fabian Alcantara, the designer, built the body and tweaked the aesthetics; and director of the team, Matt Herzberger, guided the team’s creative processes.

Take the calendar for a test drive and leave the team some feedback on your experience.