Web Presence

After many months of effort, new LSST web pages went live on July 28 at www.lsst.org. This new web presence offers a more modern look, consistent across the many audiences served by the site, including the Public and Scientists, Project Team, and LSST Corporation. The site architecture allows for easier updates with the responsibility for keeping content current distributed across a group of subject-specific content editors.

Using a responsive Drupal theme, the website is designed to scale with different screen sizes on multiple platforms and browsers. Currently mobile devices account for about 15% of visits to lsst.org, a number we expect to only increase in the future. Chrome continues to be the most popular browser (at 42%) with Firefox and Safari close behind (21% & 20%, respectively); Internet Explorer currently accounts for 12% of our web traffic.

Moving forward, the site will undergo rigorous Usability Testing with an external provider, evaluating how representatives of all our audiences use the site. The website will continue to improve as we better understand our users and their ways of interacting with lsst.org.

Many people contributed to the new website design, content, and deployment including our science and project review teams. Special acknowledgement goes to the web "tiger team" who worked especially hard the past few months to pull it all together and launch the new site: Emily Acosta, Iain Goodenow, Rob McKercher, Cathy Petry, Lori White, and Suzanne Jacoby.