YOU@CSU launched nearly a year ago to favorable reviews from students as a reliable place to turn when they need a little assistance. YOU.colostate.edu is a free, online portal for the all-too-common experience of feeling overly stressed-out or as a place for self-reflection, skill building, and to find campus resources. Anyone with a colostate.edu email address can access the portal.

This semester, YOU@CSU boasts a new design and some enhanced tools so students can find what they are looking for, whenever and wherever you may need it. The updates made to YOU make it easier to track and archive goals, sift through content and find popular resources, tools or tips at CSU at any given time.

Visit YOU.colostate.edu to get started. Students, staff and faculty are encouraged to visit you for the first time or to explore the redesigned site.

Detailed updates

• New homepage: The new homepage is less “see,” more “do.” Along with the pages for Succeed, Thrive and Matter, the homepage serves students content tailored specifically for them based on their interaction with YOU. With ever-present navigation in the banner, students can still venture into Reality Checks, create and manage goals or update their profile. However, the homepage now has greater utility, wasting no time to ensure students find the advice, resources or self-reflection when they visit.

• Predictive search bar: One of the easiest ways to get to know YOU has always been with a quick search. Now, the search bar has an added predictive feature. Much like when you begin to Google something and suggested search queries appear, the improved search function on YOU will recommend content as users type a search query. This way, students can scan through the library of content for only the most relevant answers to their questions.

• Reality Check experience: Focus. Some of the best results come from doing one thing at a time. The three Reality Checks on the enhanced version of YOU cater to this idea with single-page questions and sleek interaction design as students progress through each quiz. Completing the Reality Checks is one of the major ways students can customize the content they receive on YOU.

This new approach brings additional benefits.

• Related content: With over 600 pieces of content available on YOU, it’s not always easy to scroll through everything that is available. To provide some skimmable aspects on YOU, the new “Featured Content” sidebar appears on each of the main content feeds. This sidebar will display a handful of the most popular cards or content that is timely to campus ongoings and current events.

• Enhanced goal tracker: Long-term or short-term, writing down a goal makes it seven times more likely to happen. YOU helps students maintain a well-rounded college experience by creating goals in each of the Succeed, Thrive and Matter sections. Now, when students log their goals in the Goal Tracker on YOU, they can keep an archive of completed goals to reference their achievement history all in one place.

• Accessibility: As part of the enhancements included on the updated version of YOU@CSU, the website will achieve higher accessibility standards (WCAG 2.0 AA) pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, YOU@CSU will feature web designs where contrast and text size achieve higher legibility standards, all non-text elements will have alternative tags for description on screen reading technology and more video content will host closed captioning capabilities.