EDU Checkup

3 Responses to “Richland College – Episode #23”

1. Andy Says:
   December 5th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

   Nice site – a little less academic looking than many which may be a good thing… One thing I would have liked to see was the use of breadcrumbs. With the site often going to a single column and dropping local navigation – it would be nice to have the breadcrumb trails.

   The code does tend to get a little looser the deeper you get into the site – probably relying on less skilled personnel to manage that content – we suffer from that as well.

   http://website.grader.com gave the site a 90%

2. Randy Jensen Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

   First, huge thanks for reviewing our site! I used eduStyle religiously for inspiration throughout the entire process, and wish I had known about what you were doing over here at eduCheckup as well. This is actually the first time I’ve redesigned a higher education website, so these tools were a Godsend.

   We’re already working on some concerns you pointed out, but we’re also looking into the other ones you brought to our attention. (faculty profile buttons being redesigned and more accessible, play/pause buttons on slideshow, etc.)

   I did want to clear up a few things about the site.

   Design
   ——–

   You got me with the famfamfam icons I got lazy and figured that the majority of the people wouldn’t notice until I get some time to clean up that area a bit more.

   We’re working on adding play/pause buttons to the slideshow on the homepage. We almost launched with a flash solution, but pulled it in favor of javascript at the last second for several reasons. The biggest reason was to try and be as accessible as possible on the new generation of smart phones (the iPhone and G1, as well as Android as a whole, which don’t currently support Flash).

   As far as having each site with it’s own design, we just don’t have the staff or the time to do that which was why the header image was important as the main distinction. I definitely see what you mean, but it’s something that’s just out of our reach right now.

   The large text on the catalog page you looked at is something that is hosted on a third party server and seriously limits what we can do with it in terms of design. I’m sure you can appreciate that

   Code
   ——-

   The code you couldn’t find in the source is in our accordion menu in the top right. This was implemented as a way to include links that were important to faculty/staff/current students, but not necessarily important to prospective students. We wanted to make the site easy to navigate for people who have never seen it as to not scare them away, but also incredibly functional to the people who are going to use it on a daily basis.

   Since my background is actually in internet marketing/SEO, there was a huge push with this design to attract prospective students, instead of just having a website that was a portal for internal use.

   I went with divs in the news column for a couple of reasons. The news column has accordion functionality as well and I didn’t want to have a block level element (p) inside a dl (although technically you can have block level elements inside dd and dt. Just a preference I guess. For normal news sections, I completely agree that dl is the way to go.

   Finally, the empty links you saw will definitely be cleaned up. I used sprites for any image based rollover and IE6 choked on the ones hidden in the accordion menu. I tried to use one large image to be the sprite for all 7 icons, but IE6 couldn’t handle the js animation when the menu dropped down, so I ended up re-coding most of that section. I could have just used a conditional css file for IE6, but I just can’t allow myself to use conditionals, hacks, etc. just to make IE behave. You’ll notice if you look at the css and html, it all validates and there aren’t any hacks. If I’m forced to make a choice, I’ll write a bit looser (yet valid) code in lieu of adding any hacks. Again, preference.

   Conclusion
   ———-

   I didn’t mean for this to go on so long, but I felt that your users might appreciate having a deeper understanding of why things were done the way they were and that there’s not always just one way to do something.

   Thanks again for reviewing the site and be on the lookout for a dm/email from me. I’d like to get in contact and see what you’re doing at http://wayne.edu/ when you have some time.

   Keep up the amazing work!

3. Nick DeNardis Says:
   December 14th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

   @Andy I think the less academic it looks the more comfortable it is for people who are “non traditional” students. Often having the college feel makes those students feel old and intimidated. Breadcrumbs would be a total plus.

   @Randy Not a problem, it was my pleasure. I really just started educheckup a few months ago so dont feel bad to be a first time viewer, most everybody is. The community support in higher education is amazing, we just need to spread the word to other higher ed web workers so we all can improve and build off everyone’s support.

   Im not going to respond to all your points on the site but AMAZING that you guys are limber enough to take compliments and criticism and act directly on them! THAT is the key to a successful web site. Not being on a high pedestal but watching and listening, adapting and being more helpful to users is big time.

   I REALLY appreciate your response and explaining all the points from the video, this type of community feedback gives even more insight into the world of higher ed web development and in turns helps soo many more people.

   Love you guys, keep it up!

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