Comments on: Western Illinois University – Episode #130 http://educheckup.com/2009/11/30/western-illinois-university-episode-130/ Website reviews from your visitor’s point of view Sat, 12 May 2012 22:59:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Tim http://educheckup.com/2009/11/30/western-illinois-university-episode-130/comment-page-1/#comment-1202 Tim Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:03:20 +0000 http://educheckup.com/?p=1171#comment-1202 Sue, as I no longer work in higher education (the corporate world is ... um ... well, it's another world), I guess I can reply without fear of retribution. To be brutally honest, you are part of the problem. There is no reason for any of the links you mentioned to be on the home page, and you (and all other faculty / staff) are not a user group. All internal resources such as timecards, policy manuals, and email belong on an intranet site. The intranet should be the productivity center for internal users (including current students, faculty, and staff). The website should serve prospective students and alumni, with current students as a secondary audience. Sue, as I no longer work in higher education (the corporate world is … um … well, it’s another world), I guess I can reply without fear of retribution.
To be brutally honest, you are part of the problem. There is no reason for any of the links you mentioned to be on the home page, and you (and all other faculty / staff) are not a user group. All internal resources such as timecards, policy manuals, and email belong on an intranet site. The intranet should be the productivity center for internal users (including current students, faculty, and staff). The website should serve prospective students and alumni, with current students as a secondary audience.

]]> By: Sue http://educheckup.com/2009/11/30/western-illinois-university-episode-130/comment-page-1/#comment-1057 Sue Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:26:11 +0000 http://educheckup.com/?p=1171#comment-1057 Interesting little setup you've got going here! I hope universities are paying attention. As an employee of Western, I also have reasons to go to our site. I can get to my email, fill out my electronic timecard, find forms and policy manuals, etc., tasks all related to my job. I DON'T want to click on a thousand links or dropdowns to get there - I want it all with one click, just like everyone else. I believe that is the reason there is so much information crammed on our homepage. There are at least five groups of people I can think of who want to go to a university's homepage - prospective students, current students, faculty/staff, alumni and those "just lookin' around." How can the homepage serve all of those users with the fewest clicks, the clearest content and the perfect look? Raising one group above another seems hardly fair. Should the homepage simply have five big buttons with those descriptions on them so the user can choose a path more specific to his/her needs? I would think that all university homepages have this problem. How do you suggest we improve our homepage to serve all of those users as equally as possible? Thanks for your time. Interesting little setup you’ve got going here! I hope universities are paying attention.

As an employee of Western, I also have reasons to go to our site. I can get to my email, fill out my electronic timecard, find forms and policy manuals, etc., tasks all related to my job. I DON’T want to click on a thousand links or dropdowns to get there – I want it all with one click, just like everyone else. I believe that is the reason there is so much information crammed on our homepage.

There are at least five groups of people I can think of who want to go to a university’s homepage – prospective students, current students, faculty/staff, alumni and those “just lookin’ around.” How can the homepage serve all of those users with the fewest clicks, the clearest content and the perfect look? Raising one group above another seems hardly fair. Should the homepage simply have five big buttons with those descriptions on them so the user can choose a path more specific to his/her needs?

I would think that all university homepages have this problem. How do you suggest we improve our homepage to serve all of those users as equally as possible?

Thanks for your time.

]]>