Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Why college websites suck

     There’s an interesting piece in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed about college websites and the fact that, mostly, they suck (No Laughing Matter).
     Popular web cartoonist Randall Munroe recently produced a particularly apt cartoon about the typical college website. It's a Venn diagram:


So Munroe’s the kid who’s calling the Emperor naked. But people are noticing this kid:
     …The punch line — that university website designers have no idea what their visitors actually want front and center — has hit close enough to home to create a lot of buzz elsewhere on the Web….
     …“The cartoon is right on target,” wrote Martin Ringle, CIO of Reed College, in an e-mail. “College website design typically focuses on what an institution wants to say, not necessarily what prospective students (and others) want to know.”
. . .
     The … cartoon was particularly apt in skewering three useless but nevertheless common features on a college’s home page, said Mark Greenfield, director of Web services at the State University of New York at Buffalo and an associate consultant at the major higher-ed consulting firm Noel-Levitz. Specifically: the statement of philosophy, the letter from the president or provost, and the campus news feed.
     Having those up there might seem like a good idea to the administrative committees that tend to dictate website content, Greenfield said, but they are rarely useful to the website’s most strategically important kind of visitor: the prospective student….
. . .
     So what accounts for this apparent disconnect between what some colleges choose to include on their home pages and what visitors actually want to find there?
. . .
     …[S]ome colleges' home pages are saturated with features that do not so much reflect guesses at what visitors need, but what various campus interests want. Greenfield said “home page politics” – different departments and personalities jockeying for position – have a strong influence on what an institution’s site ends up looking like. After all, he said, if a president says he wants a letter and a mission statement out front, what Web administrator is going to say no?
. . .
     “Personally, I think an institution’s website is a reflection of the organization,” says Terry Calhoun, director of media relations at the Society for College and University Planning.
     “It’d be interesting to rate them and try to guess who ‘controls’ each one.”
Check out our colleges’ websites and tell us what you think!
Irvine Valley College website
Saddleback College website
ATEP website
See also

For College Newspapers, Prepackaged Online Versions Are Yesterday's News (Chronicle of Higher Education)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I love that picture! The El Toro Meat Market is what it's called now, isn't it? ES

Roy Bauer said...

Gosh, ES, I just got through replacing that pic! Sorry about that. I'll put it back up later though. In the meantime, here's a link to it.

Anonymous said...

So, basically, nothing escapes being influenced by the bickering and pettiness. I just got a little bit depressed. ES

Roy Bauer said...

ES, I shall assume you are referring to the reason that college websites are the way they are. (Correct me if I'm mistaken.)
Well, it isn't all that bad. If you read the entire IHE article, you'll see indications that things are changing for the better--that, increasingly, colleges and universities are attempting to make these websites responsive to student needs. Still, it is amazing how difficult they can be to navigate when one seeks the simplest information. Often, I'll visit a college website and spend several minutes just getting to a directory of faculty/administrators or a particular academic department. I ask myself, "How can this be?"
My guess is that the politics won't stand in the way of gradual and significant improvements on these websites.
It still pisses me off, though, that the IVC website doesn't have a prominent link to DtB!

Anonymous said...

Yes, that is what I was referring to. And I'm glad that things show signs of gradually changing for the better. I guess the part that depresses me is that there are such petty self interested political games at all...but hey, I guess that's true anywhere. It's just that I used to have this romantic idea of what academia was like, but I started reading your blog, and then a couple of other blogs, and that burst my bubble pretty quickly. Like removing a Band-Aid, however, better that it happened quickly. ES

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that photo. I had no idea the place had been around that long. I usually buy my Christmas prime rib roast from them. ES

Roy Bauer said...

Just where is it?
I found the photo at a website that archives old county photos, etc. I would say that the photo was taken in the early 60s (judging mostly by the cars).

Anonymous said...

I instantly thought that I recognized the building, and if I'm correct, that building now houses the El Toro Meat Market which is a small gourmet-ish grocer and butcher shop. The left side of the building has been converted to a restaurant or bar. It's located at 23522 El Toro Road in Lake Forest. ES

Anonymous said...

There's a picture of the contemporary store here.

Anonymous said...

For a discussion of the original photo (evidently taken in 1960), go here. --BvT

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...