|
|
Website Survival Report Card for Cambrian
College
Image of Home Page (51K) Image
of Sub-Page (47K) on 2003-Apr-21
Congratulations! This is a free usability
review from UsabilityInstitute.com. "Usability" refers
to how easy and effective it is to use a Web site. Although it involves
how a site looks (graphic artwork), it is primarily concerned with
how a site works, what you click on, what happens, and whether the
site does its job.
- Perhaps
this review is all you need to improve your site. If that's the
case, great. Please mention UsabilityInstitute.com if you talk
with others who need help with their site. (Bookmark
this site)
- On the other hand, if you would like to put some of these recommendations
into action on your site, or get a more detailed analysis, contact
us.
The following three sections provide a general
analysis of your website from a relatively quick review. Although
Web design is still perceived as a highly creative endeavor, there
are many aspects of it that call for standardization and compliance
with widely established conventions. Implementing even a few of
the ideas below can really improve a site.
|
|
|
This first
section is intended for typical public web sites (for products
and corporate information), but also applies for the most part
to intranets and software applications that run in a browser.
We've been advocating many of these ideas—in the context
of general software—since our 1997 book, Computers Stink,
but they've been beautifully enumerated for WWW purposes in
Steve Krug's book, "Don't Make Me Think." |
|
|
|
Click
for explanation |
|
Hover
for explanation
|
Comments |
|
|
1. |
Logo
in top left, linked to home |
|
It's in all pages but
split between top left and center. Recommendation: have a graphic
artist put the logo into the top left text, and perhaps stack
the words Cambrian College in smaller type. |
|
|
2. |
Tagline |
|
I briefly looked on the
"About" pages for a slogan or claim to fame but didn't
spot one. |
|
|
3. |
Welcome
blurb |
|
Even
though everyone knows what a college is, assume folks hit the
page from an unrelated search. Tell them in one good sentence
where you are, what degrees you're strong in, and perhaps how
you characterize your place in the community... maybe even why
to visit your locale, even unrelated to college! |
|
|
4. |
Plain
wording |
|
I spotted a couple of
items such as Superbuild and "Real careers for real life,"
but they're appropriate and they work. |
|
|
5. |
No 'happy
talk' |
|
Everone deserves one
Blue Ribbon! |
|
|
6. |
Concise
wording |
|
|
|
|
7. |
Visited
pages are distinguished by link color-coding |
|
Most
pages are accessed from graphical links that can't support this,
but the nature of the site makes it feasible. I noticed a sub-link,
Rental Facilities, uses color-coding and even uses my
scheme of making the visited color match the page text
(black) not purple, so it is no longer eye-popping! Needs a
little more study; could be important if people aren't finding
what they want. |
|
|
8. |
"Utilities"
are easy to find |
|
Yes...
except the Site Map. |
|
|
9. |
Search
on all pages, with box and button |
|
Put the box right on
the page. |
|
|
10. |
"You
Are Here" indicator |
|
Example, the "Homepages"
nav graphic at the bottom of the page doesn't have any highlight
or arrow when you're on the Homepages page. But I'm not sure
it's a significant issue. Might be inapplicable because of the
per-visitor home pages. Needs more study. |
|
|
11. |
Breadcrumbs'
as links |
|
Breadcrumbs
aren't used. The question is, "Are they needed?" The
richness of the site map is starting to make me think that they
are, as well as the You Are Here indicator. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Students and Professional Developers:
Designing a serious software application in a browser?
Don't spend time and money designing the look and styles...
there's more than you think involved! Instead, use GenericUI,
shareware CSS and artwork that's free for non-commercial use
and indefinite trial use.
|
Do your hands ache after a day at the keyboard??? This review sponsored
by...
Summation & Next Steps
Overall Rating:
Strives
/
Survives /
Thrives
Remember this is a superficial review, so for fundamentally sound
sites, it tends to be a little forgiving since I don't dig very
deeply into genuine user experiences. That said, Cambrian is a great
site. It's got 95% of the easy stuff, and an initial review appears
to indicate that it achieves the most important of goals, providing
the content people came for. To step up to our highest rating, State
of the Art/A Model for Others, it needs to do two things:
- Solve the holy grail issue of Web design, how to make the best
click-tree that doesn't leave people 'pogo-sticking' in and out
of dead-end pages. Fortunately, this is easier work than the hard
part that is already done (valuable content). The click-tree might
be called "metacontent," and you're probably very close. The more
one clicks around, the more question arises over the relationship
between the links on the left and those on the top: is Applied
Research part of other pages? Are certain Homepages filtered out
of other pages? Why isn't Departmental Homepages under the Student
link as well? The sub pages, not having anything other than a
'flat' listing, don't give any visual cues as to the subordination
or grouping of items. Maybe 'refactoring' isn't really needed
and all you have to do is provide a few pages with multiple paths
to get to them. The problem is not a simple one. Perhaps check
other school sites for some ideas.
- The only other question is stepping up from valuable content
to valuable services such as fully automated transcript provision,
if it's feasible. Perhaps I've simply not noticed some E-service
items you've actually accomplished.
Hope this helps and let me know
what you think,
Jack Bellis, UsabilityInstitute.com
|