The Biggest Thing to Happen to the CU Denver Website This Millennium: We Rebuilt It

Your Student Service Super Market

Last fall, students told us they felt overwhelmed trying to navigate around the university. You said it felt more like a maze than a student journey. Rather than tracking down and visiting different offices across campus, you wanted one location that could take care of all of your needs. We give you, Lynx Central.

A New Design Required New Technology

We had to make some huge changes, starting with the platform. The university transitioned all existing sites to a more modern content management system (CMS) called Sitefinity. But we didn’t stop there. We built an all-inclusive site that connects you to everything you need as a student at CU Denver. A central place that links Lynx to their services, the Lynx Central website. This new homepage has it all:

  • Student stories
  • Pro tips from CU Denver staff
  • Important dates and deadlines
  • Student news and events
  • Links to all of your enrollment needs
  • Job boards and research opportunities
  • Health and wellness programs
  • Safety and support services
  • Transportation resources

Functional and Intuitive 

Okay, so we combined everything to make services more accessible. That was only half the battle. This site was built for our awesome, diverse, and fun student body – and we wanted your website to reflect that. So, we hired a group of awesome, diverse, and fun students to help make our site just that. Student artists and graphic designers gave sites like Undergraduate Admissions, the Learning Resources Center, and the Registrar’s Office a whole new look and feel engaging graphics and a user-friendly design.

Student Tested, Student Approved 

In addition to the look of the sites, we also made changes to the navigation. We sat down with over two hundred students to do card sorting sessions and let them organize topics into categories that made sense to you. This led to a completely different user experience. 

Student testing also led to a complete reformatting of the language across the site. With the help of CU Denver student writers, we got rid of the outdated academic jargon and focused on common language, speaking directly to you in terms that actually make sense. Now, you can use the site the way you want to.

By Ben Dewhurst ’19, graduated from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Screenshot of CU Denver registrar home page