1. Purpose
Missouri S&T's Web Strategy and Development team provides design consultations to help departments and organizations plan, structure, and present their web content effectively. This policy establishes who may request a consultation, how requests are handled, what departments are expected to provide, and what a consultation produces.
2. What Is a Design Consultation?
A design consultation is a collaborative engagement between Web Strategy and a requesting department or organization to determine the appropriate layout, structure, and flow for web content. Consultations apply to any university web platform, including TerminalFour, WordPress, and other web systems managed by Web Strategy.
Consultations range in scope depending on the complexity of the request:
- Simple consultations involve a single page or minor update and may require only a brief exchange of context and a completed content document.
- Complex consultations involve multiple pages, new templates, or significant restructuring and may require one or more meetings, extended content collection, and iterative review.
The output of a consultation is a webpage update, a new page layout, or a reusable template structure — for example, a standardized page layout that a department can reuse for recurring content such as annual programs or events.
3. Who May Request a Consultation
Design consultation requests may be submitted by:
- Content authors
- Department or organizational leaders
- Managers
- Site owners
Consultations may also be initiated by Web Strategy proactively or at the direction of university leadership.
4. Prioritization
Consultation requests are reviewed and prioritized based on available Web Strategy capacity. The team is limited in size, and not all requests can be addressed simultaneously. Requests are evaluated based on factors including strategic importance, scope, and order of submission.
5. Timelines
Consultation timelines vary based on the scope, steps involved, and current Web Strategy capacity. A simple update with complete context and content already provided may be completed the same day if it can be prioritized within the current workload. A more complex request involving content collection, layout design, writing assistance, or iterative review may take two weeks or more.
Web Strategy can provide a timeline estimate once the scope of the request is understood. Timelines are affected by the completeness of the department's submission — requests missing context or content will not move forward until the required information is provided.
6. Department Responsibilities
The success of a consultation depends on the department's preparation and participation. Departments are responsible for providing the following before and during the consultation process.
6.1 Context
Departments must supply the context Web Strategy needs to make informed layout and structural decisions. This includes:
- What the page is for: Describe what a visitor can do or learn on this page — not why your department needs it to exist.
- Who it's for: The intended audience. Be specific where possible (e.g., prospective students, current graduate students, industry partners).
- What you want users to do: The action or understanding you want users to take away from the page.
- Expected outcome: What should be different after this page exists? For example: fewer calls to the office with basic questions, more event registrations, or students finding policies without emailing.
This context should be submitted with the initial request or provided promptly when requested. Vague or internally focused descriptions will be returned for clarification before work begins.
6.2 Content
Departments are responsible for providing the text content that will appear on the page. Web Strategy can provide a content template with guidance for each content area, including what it's for, what it should say, suggested style, and length guidelines. Departments should make a best-effort attempt to follow these guidelines when writing their content.
If a department has existing content, collected materials, or specific information they want to include, Web Strategy can help shape that material into a format optimized for the page's audience and what you want users to do — provided the raw content is supplied by the department in an organized form. A starting point from the department is always required.
Content must be provided before design or layout work can begin. Incomplete submissions will delay the consultation.
7. Web Strategy Responsibilities
Web Strategy is responsible for:
- Determining appropriate page layout, structure, and content flow based on the department's goals and audience
- Providing a content template with guidance on what each content area is for, what it should say, suggested style, and length
- Helping shape department-supplied content into a format suited to the page's audience and what users should do, where needed
- Producing a webpage update, layout, or reusable template as the consultation output
- Communicating timelines and keeping the department informed of progress
8. Completion and Ongoing Maintenance
A consultation is complete when the department approves the final page or site and it is published. Once published, the department's content authors are responsible for maintaining and updating the content going forward.
Content authors who need help using the CMS or editing content after launch may request web support through webstrategy.mst.edu.
9. Cancellation and Abandonment
Departments may cancel a consultation at any time by notifying Web Strategy.
If a department becomes unresponsive during a consultation — for example, by not providing requested content or context — Web Strategy will follow up periodically. If no response is received within three months, the consultation will be closed. The department may submit a new request to restart the process.
10. Requesting a Consultation
Consultation requests are submitted through the Design Consultation Request form. Requests are acknowledged within two business days. A timeline estimate can be provided once the scope of the request is understood and the consultation is scheduled.