Many of the reasons that we are making these changes are outlined in this blog on the About and Design Principles tabs. This is a quick list that might be useful when explaining the reasons for the upcoming changes to our end users:

• First and foremost, we are redesigning and improving the website in response to feedback from and information from our users. We have spent several years conducting assessments, and compiling and analyzing data to better understand those needs.
• Users are beginning to work in multiple environments and on a variety of platforms, and our site needs to be responsive to those environments. We’ve redesigned the site so that it is responsive to the size of the screen you are viewing it on, and so that the navigation and functionality are not lost when you are using it via a touch-screen.
• By updating the site to be responsive to multiple devices and to comply with new coding standards (HTML5 and CSS3 if you are interested in that sort of thing), we are able to make sure the site works in current browsers.
• Using a more standard grid-based and user-centered design framework will allow us to respond to changing user needs more quickly and to improve the consistency of our site both internally and across browsers and devices.
• The new design will allow us to more efficiently and effectively respond to user needs and feedback, and to more easily enhance the user experience. It will offer us more opportunities to effectively engage the university community.