Press Release 12-124
New Look and Feel for NSF.gov

NSF launches first phase in website redesign

NSF's home page refresh. Credit and Larger Version

July 9, 2012

Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) rolled out a new design of its home page at NSF.gov that promises to be more attractive and engaging for visitors to the site.

"NSF's 'home page refresh' creates an Internet presence that is more streamlined and visually appealing while continuing to provide access to information about scientific research and education," said NSF Director Subra Suresh. "The 'refresh' should appeal to our science, engineering and education communities as well as the general public."

The updated home page features a number of changes that include new graphics, more "white space," fewer overall links and a larger area for highlighting stories important to the work NSF supports.

Sections labeled "Advancing the Sciences," "Funding & Supporting," and "Inspiring & Educating" provide new opportunities to show NSF's focus on science, showcase research and education activities, and encourage more exploration of the website. The "NSF Funding & Research Community" section of the home page consolidates information of particular interest to researchers and others who want to find out about potential funding. The home page also has more features that target key audiences, and more buttons that allow users to hide certain items--a particular benefit for frequent website visitors, who know what content they want to see most often.

The team that developed the refreshed page looked at trends in web design, evaluated sites used by peer organizations and used the current site to brainstorm approaches and ideas for updating the NSF home page.  The group also considered input from NSF employees.

In addition, the developers emphasized presentation and messaging with an understanding that changes would lead to new content, features and organization in future iterations of the website.

While most of the initial round of changes focus on the home page, improvements to the primary navigation in the header and footer are carried over to all of the pages to give the entire site a uniform look. Future changes will follow a pattern of being small in scope, high in impact and resource-efficient.

Planning already is underway to make additional changes during the next the next 18-24 months.

NSF.gov receives nearly 1.2 million visitors each month.

-NSF-

Media Contacts
Bobbie Mixon, NSF (703) 292-8070 bmixon@nsf.gov

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, its budget is $7.0 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives over 50,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. NSF also awards nearly $420 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

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