This week on EDU Checkup I only reviewed one site, The University of Chicago on location in Chicago. Unfortunately not on campus but close. The visuals and use of the web as a medium are amazing on the site. The code is equally as good, careful planning and execution has taken place with both.

The Tip of the Day came from placing the javascript includes at the bottom of the page which gives the appearance of a faster loading page. Remember, perception is reality, if you can shave off 10-20 milliseconds off load time your users will notice.

I wish I could say the information on the site followed suit but it just fell short. Like most other universities each department has their own site and agenda. This is great for the deans but not for the users, each link jumps off to a different site and a new navigation forcing the user to re-search for what they are looking for. Its unfortunate because if it were shored up this site would hit it out of the park.

This Week’s Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

This week on EDU Checkup I reviewed three sites by request. A few recent redesigns and they just wanted to know how they did. No one failed so I would say they are on the right track. Each have their own needs but information quality was a big deal on all three, Bellevue University knocked it out of the park while Asbury College and North Carolina Central University fell very short. Without information you are going to loose users fast. Think about a prospective student comes into your admissions office and asks what it takes to get a degree in social work and the person just gives them the run around and the student leaves confused. You don’t want that to happen to your prospective students online.

This Week’s Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

This week on EDU Checkup I only reviewed two sites by request. Both had strengths and weaknesses. The first, Elon University had a difficult time with information and the typefaces were all over the board. The second, Washtenaw Community College had great visual design and consistency. They really took time and care into getting the information architecture and hierarchy set from a first time user point of view. Overall two great sites reviewed and a lot of lessons learned.

Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

This week on EDU Checkup I only reviewed two sites. The first, UofM we learned if you are going to write a lot of javascript using a framework is the way to go. The framework will not only make your code cross browser compatible but also give future developers a common coding style that they can look up documentation on.

The second site, Centre College was not the best site I reviewed to say the least. Frankly its prime has come and gone, it looks like the site structure has not changed for many years. Its sad because they have so much potential, overall their information was there but they just have to get it in order and have someone in the web department rallying for their end users.

Both of these sites were by request, if you would like me to review your site or one of your competitors you can submit it on the Suggest a Site form.

Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

This week on EDU Checkup I reviewed three sites. The first, Ohio State University - Stone Laboratory was at random and received the highest rating of any site on EDU Checkup. From its beautiful colors, typography and use of icons it was a pleasure to use as a first time visitor. It was like I was being guided along a walking tour. They paid attention to making sure the user was always involved with the experience of the site while still being able to locate the information. I might add that the code was one of the cleanest I have seen yet.

The other two were by request and did not fare so well. Both were your typical university sites that are in desperate need of a redesign. Kent State University piled on the menu items and links on the homepage. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Graduate School had a small main menu and drove the users into a huge list of sub menus, it was quite hard to find information.

Overall a great week, we learned a lot from these sites and their daily tips can be found on the Tip Archive page with the tips from all past episodes.

Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

Tell your friends on Twitter

This week on EDU Checkup I reviewed three sites by request. Each site got progressively worse grades but the lessons got better and better as the week went on. Hinds Community College even got two tips of the day!

What it all comes down to in the end is a site that reacts relatively quickly and has a good information architecture. If you are interested I use the same basic formula when reviewing all sites, I recently published it in this comment. Although following the basic rules won’t guarantee an A grade on your site it will make your users happy and that is the most you can ask for.

Remember, the scores are just my opinion. I encourage you to form your own opinions about sites and if you disagree with me good for you! There is no perfect formula to making a successful site, just make sure you have your users best interest in mind and it will always turn out for the best.

Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

The College of William & Mary

Below are the results of an email interview we did with Susan Evans of The College of William & Mary in April of this year. She was happy to share lots of useful information about her team, their redesign project, and how it all came together.

The College of William & Mary website was selected Noteworthy for September 2008 and most recently was reviewed in The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher-Ed Homepage Design.

Can you give us a high-level view of the project (start, finish dates, goals, vision, etc)?

The pre-planning phase of re.web (the William & Mary web redesign project) began in November 2007 and the project was officially announced in February 2008. During pre-planning phase, we talked with key stakeholders, established the advisory committee, conducted informal interviews with web consultants, and checked in with other schools that had undertaken similar projects. As it turned out, this pre-planning effort allowed us to move more quickly once the project was officially announced to our campus.

We launched our new site and new web content management system on July 31, 2008, about 17 months later.

The goal of the re.web project was to create and deploy an integrated web communication strategy. We hoped for a site that would reflect both the historic and innovative aspects of our campus. We also wanted to offer a new design and new way of managing websites that would be attractive to all web editors at the university.

What motivated the start of the project?

The former design and structure for the W&M website was nearly nine years old. The design was stale and there was no global navigation. There was no information architecture to speak of – all sites were folders at the root of the web server and the site search was very weak.

Like many websites, it had been in place for a while and no central campus unit was managing it effectively. In the hundreds of people I talked with during the project, I never heard from anyone that the site did not need to be redesigned.

Finally, William & Mary web editors were managing their sites using a set of homegrown, php-based templates and a homegrown content management system. These systems were aging and we wanted to offer a superior option for managing content in departmental websites.

What are some specific things about the previous design that you were aiming to correct in this latest design?
At the outset of the project, an integrated design deployed with a central web content management system was the target. We wanted a rock-solid IA, well-tested global navigation, a classy design, and engaging copy that represented what is special about our 316-year-old school.

Can you tell us about some aspects of the project you are particularly proud of?

I am particularly proud that all William & Mary units came together for this campus-wide effort. We launched a new site for the College in July 2008 and by August 2009, all graduate and professional schools will offer complementary sites using the central CMS. We anticipate that we will have successfully relaunched (transitioned) all official William & Mary departmental sites within twelve months after the launch of the new top-level site.

I am also extremely proud of my team – there were just five of us during the redesign phase. I will always be grateful for the personal sacrifices each of them made during the final four months.

What are some specific challenges you encountered?

After nearly 18 months of transparent communication, we realized about eight weeks before launch that we needed to STOP communicating with the campus. This was a struggle for us because ongoing communication was the signature of the re.web project. But in the final eight weeks, we had an unspeakable amount of work left to do - so we needed a concentrated work period and a singular focus. Also, we realized that until our new site launched, people on campus had the false impression that design and functionality were still up for discussion. So we took ourselves out of situations (presentations, meetings, popular lunch spots, etc.) where campus constituents could ask us to make a design change or force us to admit that a nice-to-have functionality wouldn’t be there at launch.

Another big struggle centered around global navigation. Everyone supported it during the design phase; but once individual units began to plan more concretely about their own web pages, some thought the global navigation contained links that their visitors “would never need.”  We held firm and all is well.

What is something you learned from the project?

We learned a lot – here are some standouts:

A big surprise to us was that most people focus on the technology of their website instead of their content. Everybody wants to talk about how the CMS will work, what can be done to save their effort, why they can’t have more whiz bang, and when the search will improve… But having a serious conversation about content development is viewed as an unmentionable - an annoyance, and sometimes an after thought. More discouraging is that some will use what they view as a deficiency in the technology as an iron clad excuse not to write better content. We’re gently and gradually making content KING on our campus.

Living with uncertainty is hard. For most people, managing the unknowns is difficult and that was definitely our experience. While you’re working on web strategy, you start to worry about choosing a design that everyone will like. Once you get design nailed down, you start to panic about who’s going to write all that new content. And throughout, you’re hoping you don’t get chased off campus because you pick a web CMS that is not easy to use. We started to feel better about all of the uncertainty once we bought into the process. And, it was immensely comforting to have the years of experience (including war stories) of the mStoner team at our disposal.

We didn’t completely figure out video content – has anyone? We are working now on a strategy for multimedia. We have a few gems on our site now and there are lots of ideas swirling around: student-produced content, ongoing webcasts…. The W&M Web Team had been promised a new multimedia web position in the next fiscal year; but given Virginia’s current budget crisis, we aren’t likely to get the new position. We will need to figure this out without additional resources. We know we need to do more.

Who developed the visual design of the site? (internal team, external agency, etc)

The visual design for the William & Mary site was developed externally by mStoner. I put together an internal design team that reviewed the design concepts they proposed. The mStoner designers were incredibly talented, flexible, and patient as we considered and evaluated the options. The internal design team included members of the web redesign project team, the director of admission, the direction of publications, and the campus photographer.

What were some of the sources of inspiration for the visual design?

mStoner spent hours talking with campus stakeholders, faculty and current students. After these small group meetings and based on feedback from a survey of prospective students, mStoner offered a web strategy that included some unique themes and messages for the new William & Mary site. When we first saw the three design concepts, we knew that mStoner had nailed it – they clearly understood the William & Mary ethos and had captured it in the mock ups.

What advice would you give looking back at the project?

I would give two pieces of advice – 1) manage the internal communication and 2) announce a launch date.

1) Internal communication. I have often said that the web redesign at William & Mary was 20% technology and 80% not. Managing campus communication for a web redesign contributes to the requisite consensus and enthusiasm for such projects. In a nutshell, our internal communication plan was rooted in a philosophy of transparency.

It’ll come as no surprise that we used the web to communicate about re.web - our communication strategy included a project website (http://www.wm.edu/reweb), a project blog (http://reweb.blogspot.com), campus presentations, and the now underestimated power of the personal visit.

Joel Pattison and I offered a presentation at HighEdWeb 2008 called “Getting Them to the Table, and Keeping Them There” (http://www.highedweb.org/wordpress/?p=122). The presentation chronicles re.web communication and a companion handout is available on my personal site (http://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/stevan/highedweb2008handout).

2) Announce a launch date. We publicly announced the July 31 launch date for our new site on April 2. For the seasoned project managers out there, this end date will come as a no brainer.  Nothing keeps you in line more than a deadline. And as you get to the end game, you need the deadline to help you prioritize and make the hard decisions. When you have unlimited time, you are more likely to have an elastic scope (i.e., you’ll agree to add or change almost anything). To be frank, by June 1, we were really glad it was almost over.

What technologies did you take advantage of? (AJAX, APIs, Flash video, etc)

We are using Flash video for the William & Mary site.

What area headed the project? Was there a committee? Who was involved in the committee? Is a standing or just for the project?

The W&M web redesign was led by Information Technology. We also had a 12-member project advisory committee with key stakeholders represented. This project advisory committee has morphed into a larger and permanent campus web advisory committee.

The core project team was small – five very talented and knowledge web professionals were key and did the lion share of the work. Many others volunteered time and expertise – most notably, our dean of admission, the director of publications, the director of research communication, the campus photographer, and many communication and design professionals on campus.

What type of user feedback or testing did you use? (usability test, feedback forms, beta site, blog, etc). Can you describe how you tested or gathered feedback? At what stage of the project? How did it influence the final design?

During the design phase, we used web-based surveys to get feedback on the three design concepts from prospective and early decision students. We also conducted small focus groups with on campus faculty, staff and students. Focus group participants completed a feedback form.

About three months before launch, we conducted usability testing with the help of mStoner. Using More software and a script of tasks developed jointly with our mStoner partners, we tested our site with students in Chicago who fit the prospective student profile established by our admission office.

Throughout the re.web project, we used our blog to gather opinions, impressions, and suggestions on everything from navigation, to colors, to photography, to font (I could keep going on the list here …)

We soft launched our site two weeks prior to the official launch, asking our campus community to preview the site and send feedback. With their help, we picked off errors and made adjustments before the public launch.

What was you reaction when you found out that your site had been selected as a Noteworthy design by the eduStyle community?

We were thrilled, of course. We referenced it on our blog as a way to highlight it to the W&M community - http://wmwebteam.wmblogs.net/2008/09/03/my-style/

We were also nervous; we knew the site wasn’t perfect but having just launched it, we wanted everyone to love it.

Could you list the URLs of any articles or news items that present more information about the website.

The re.web project website:
http://www.wm.edu/reweb

The re.web project blog:
http://reweb.blogspot.com

The end of the re.web blog and the first post on the new W&M Web Team Blog:
http://wmwebteam.wmblogs.net/2008/07/31/a-new-beginning/

William & Mary News story about the launch of the new website:
http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2008/collegelaunchesredesignedwebsite-0731.php

Interview on mStoner Blog:
http://www.mstoner.com/index.php/blog/comments/proust_questionnaire_susan_evans_college_of_william_mary/

William & Mary Web Team Profiles

Susan T. Evans - Director of Web and Communication Services
Susan directs W&M web communications - overseeing web strategy and content, managing the transition to the new design and information architecture, and serving on the president’s strategic communication team. Susan began working at the College in 1989, moving from Human Resources to IT in 1998. She has held her current position since 2001.

Andrew Bauserman - Senior Web Architect
Andrew is a William & Mary alumnus, working at the College since 2001. He consults on the construction and implementation of technologies to support the W&M web presence.

Tina Coleman - Managing Editor of the William & Mary Web
Tina has worked at the College for 20 years and is responsible for editorial control of the top-level W&M web presence. She directs the largest website launches, manages the W&M Blogs and coordinates the development of content.

Joel Pattison - Designer and Project Manager
Joel has been contributing to the W&M web for nearly five years. He is the senior designer, evaluates usability, and manages the development and implementation of web products and services.

Mark Windley - CMS Administrator and Web Project Manager
Mark is an alumnus of the College, working at W&M for nearly five years. He manages the W&M content management system, directing its use for multiple sites and extending its functionality to support communication and business needs.

This week on EDU Checkup I reviewed two sites. The first University College Falmouth was stunning visually but was weak on the information front. Lewis University Online was not at all visually appealing but rocked out the information category. It is interesting how much visuals weigh into a first time visitors impression of not only the site but also the university as a whole. But then after the first visit information should be taking over and the visuals should essentially disappear and only provide support to finding/enforcing content.

Im also thinking of changing the format for the weekly review post. Below you will see the scores associated with the sites reviewed. Do you like seeing the scores before or during/after the review?

Reviews

Stay tuned to the @educheckup twitter account and RSS feed for more site updated in the coming weeks. Also if you have not subscribed to the iTunes feed yet its a great way to get new episodes automatically.

University of St. Thomas

This is a follow-up interview we did with Elizabeth Houle from University of St. Thomas. Those of you who’ve been with us awhile will remember the original interview we did here. The University of St. Thomas site was selected Noteworthy for September 2007 and most recently was reviewed in The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher-Ed Homepage Design. We’d again like to thank Elizabeth Houle and the University of St. Thomas for providing this great behind-the-scenes view of their redesign project.

Can you give us an high-level view of the project (start, finish dates, goals, vision, etc)?

The project started in January and finished in July 2007.  It was approximately 6 months and the goal was to come up with a system that would maintain St. Thomas as the over arching brand but allow for some sub site elements to market a college or school.  The system has 4 parts: homepage and overview, college and schools, internal and service oriented sites and sites that have their own distinct branding.  The goal was to maintain navigation and provide way finding into deeper sections of the site.

What motivated the start of the project?

It started with a request from one of the colleges to break template.  So, we made a goal to create a homepage and overview pages to allow for college and schools to incorporate their sub-branding while maintaining a connection to the overall UST brand.

What are some specific things about the previous design that you were aiming to correct in this latest design?

• To make the site more dynamic and have spaces for updating and putting up timely content.
• The ability to convey the campuses and the community with multiple images.
• To preserve quicklinks, but name it something more intuitive to what it is which is now tools.
• To continue to provide a like to news, but not display the actual news links on the homepage.
• To create dashboards for the different audiences.
• To provide a space for marketing events on the homepage.

Can you tell us about some aspects of the project you are particularly proud of?

We are proud of…

• The design.
• The way the design and development team worked together.
• The process we used to collect stakeholder input.
• Meeting our timeline.

What are some specific challenges you encountered?

The biggest challenge was the planning and sign off on which things to list out in the navigation.  It was difficult for constituents to grasp that the list was not all inclusive but was to provide a sent for each of the categories.

An ongoing challenge we inherited with this design is finding photos that work in the large photo space.

What is something you learned from the project?

By starting with competitive analysis and stakeholder input we were able to educate the major stakeholders on our direction and vision for the site without have to get a committee together to approve it.  When we launched it the community had already pretty good buy in to what we came up with for direction and design.

Who developed the visual design of the site? (internal team, external agency, etc)

The visual design was done by the internal design team in collaboration with University Relations.

What were some of the sources of inspiration for the visual design?

http://www.apple.com
http://www.bu.edu
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.harvard.edu (previous design)
http://www.nyu.edu
http://www.unl.edu (for the drawer)

What advice would you give looking back at the project?

Don’t be afraid of stakeholder input early and often.

What technologies did you take advantage of? (AJAX, APIs, Flash video, etc)

AJAX

What area headed the project?

Web and Media Services

Was there a committee?

No

What type of user feedback or testing did you use? (usability test, feedback forms, beta site, blog, etc)

Usability testing and focus groups.

Can you describe how you tested or gathered feedback?

We met with various stakeholders around the university and did a three part interview by having them rate 3 very different designs based on preference.

We had them rate the importance of the items listed for navigation and we showed them what we learned on our competitive analysis by walking them through a series of powerpoint slides on the recommendations were planning to implement.

At what stage of the project?

At the very beginning in the analysis phase.

How did it influence the final design?

Positively influenced stakeholders and garnered support for the final design.

What was you reaction when you found out that your site had been selected as a Noteworthy design by the eduStyle community?

We were very pleased.

Could you list the URLs of any articles or news items that present more information about the website.

http://www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/news/200728/Monday/IRT7_9_07.cfm
http://www.stthomas.edu/irt/portfolio/showcase/epsilon.html

Can you also provide a quick profile of yourself and each of the key members of the project.

Elizabeth Houle (me)
Kevin Knutson
Eric Drommerhausen
Reid Miller
Jeremy Ahrens
Matthew Wash
Jared Powell
Eric Larson
And a couple of others that are no longer with the team.