Sad news for lovers of small cyan font made hard to read by a darker blue background: Yesterday, the Penn State website (www.psu.edu) added a “we’re updating” logo to the front page. Promising to “transform Penn State’s home on the web,” the new blog storyboard.psu.edu will guide students through the small changes being made to the website in the coming months.

Thank God. The blog admits that the last major site update was 11 years ago. Catering to a generation that is used to enduring a new Facebook design every six months, our university is a bit late on this much-needed redesign. When it takes me 10 minutes to find a schedule of activities going on this weekend, clearly the website is not efficiently organized.

In a step illustrating that those behind this redesign understand social media, The Storyboard announced a new Twitter tag, #PSUsite, that they encourage University stakeholders to use to respond to the changes as they happen. While a hashtag can’t do everything, I have high hopes for this update.

The blog says that, “We’re going to change how a university uses the Web to convey its story.” Does this mean integration with social media websites, or a more functional website for student resources? Or will this new story be portrayed only by handpicked model students reading a university-approved script?

Only time will tell, but I can’t wait to give them the feedback they ask for. I’m starting with a modest request to change the obnoxious cyan font.