Check Out New UOA Website

The UOA national website at www.uoa.org has been given a major facelift. Our newly redesigned site, which went live on Dec 17, 2002, features improved navigation with hierarchical menus that "fly out" from a menu bar on the left side of every page. Along with additional menus at the top and bottom of every page, and a new "search engine," these navigational devices make it possible to reach nearly anything on the site from any page of the site. At the same time, information content of the UOA site has been enhanced considerably.

Redesign of the website was an ongoing project during most of 2002. The people most centrally involved were UOA Executive Director Nancy Italia and Communication Director Ian Settlemire, along with a hired web designer named Scott Barnes. As UOA's volunteer webmaster, I was only peripherally involved during much of this project, but became very involved as we moved to the final implementation stage.

Now that the redesign has taken place, I am no longer "the UOA webmaster" but am, in effect, a co-webmaster along with Ian Settlemire: He is responsible for site content, while I am responsible for technical issues. Thus, my title is now Website Technical Manager.

The UOA site continues to include three very active discussion forums (for General Ostomy discussion, Young Adults discussion, and Parents of Ostomy Children). I remain responsible for maintaining these message boards, whose format was not changed at this stage of the redesign project.

The web redesign that went live in Dec 2002 is being described as "Phase 1" of UOA's web upgrade project. Expect more changes during the coming year. A major enhancement will be to integrate our Irvine office's databases with the website, enabling UOA to provide member services via the web.