The University of Wisconsin sports media department recently found itself facing an interesting problem. Its Web site had too much great content--and some of its best items were being overlooked. The solution? Let them play in the yard.
In March, the athletic department unveiled a new Web site, named Bucky's Backyard, after the school's official mascot, Bucky Badger. There, Wisconsin is showing off less time-sensitive items, including feature stories, video highlights, and interactive games, which were previously getting amongst constant updates on its primary site.
"Most people come to our main site for information," says Tamara Flarup, Director of Web Site Services for the Wisconsin athletic department. "They check the headlines and the schedules, and they read the bios. We wanted a place where our features and video highlights would be more prominent.
"The idea was not to create a lot of new content, but to package what we already do in a different way," she continues. "For example, when we post a blog or feature on the main site, we just tag it in our publishing tool and it goes on the new site, too. And whenever we run 'Fan Cam' footage on the scoreboards at our games, it gets posted on the new site at the same time."
Visitors to Bucky's Backyard will not see the navigation bars that typically fill the top and left-hand sides and the screen. Instead, the focal point is a big picture box highlighting either a video or feature story. Below that are three sets of five smaller pictures linking to more content, allowing the site to show off 15 articles at a time. Additional boxes highlight staff-written blogs and features, video clips, games, and promotional contests.
Flarup says the site borrows some of its look and feel from ESPN.com and serves as a test for the department's next redesign of its primary Web site. "Right now our main site has four rotating headlines on the front page and then the archives," she says. "We wanted to experiment with having 15 different headlines like ESPN did with its site redesign. Plus, by eliminating the side navigation, we created a larger page."
Some of the more popular sections of the site are:
Bucky's Fun Zone, which includes interactive Flash games first designed for the Kid's Club section of the main site. "Some of the games are educational and others are just a lot of fun," Flarup says. "We wanted parents to spend time with their children looking at our site, and the games are a great way to do that."
Where Are They Now? updates fans on former student-athletes through short "question and answer" articles as well as full features. Flarup says these stories received a strong response whenever they were posted on the main site, so they are now a weekly feature on Bucky's Backyard.
"Badger Voices is new video content featuring our athletic director, Barry Alvarez, speaking about topical issues and his experiences," Flarup explains. "He's a much sought-after speaker, not only because he was such a successful coach, but because he is very influential as an administrator. The video is a good way to showcase his many thoughts and talents."
This type of content has resulted in a longer average visit length compared to the regular site. "Even in the first month or so we saw a lot of two and half to four minute visits," Flarup says.
The site took about three months to put together after a few months of discussion. Since Wisconsin maintains its Web sites in-house, Flarup says it was easy to make changes on the fly. "If we decided we wanted to change something, we could just go across the room and say, 'Hey, let's try this,'" she says.
The name "Bucky's Backyard" was chosen in a contest that drew more than 300 entries, but there's been little other promotion of the site so far. Flarup says that will change once the new sports seasons start in the fall. "We'll probably do some outside advertising and promotions to get the word out about the site," she says. "Once people spend a little time on it they'll realize it's a lot fun."
Bucky's Backyard can be found at: www.uwbadgers.com/buckysbackyard.