Top 10 Higher-Ed Web Design Mistakes in 140
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
While working on the book I had an idea for a presentation. I’m refining the details of the presentation and thinking I might even submit a proposal for eduWEB (depending on how my schedule looks for the next few months). Anyway, I thought I’d put out a question to the twitterverse and see what I got back to help me refine the ideas a little more. Well I got so much good stuff (and twitter does such a bad job of letting you follow a conversation) I thought I’d share what I got in a blog post. I have organized them under headings in no particular order. If you have any that didn’t make the list, please comment. Thanks everyone for contributing. If you are not already following these people, you should.
1. Poor branding and lack of consistency
lack of organizational branding.
from @chasgrundy
inconsistent/ non-existent branding
from @escorial
lack of consistency
from @codyfoss
2. Bad Navigation
thinking about how you’re internally organized instead of how outsiders think of you.
from @chasgrundy
access to all pages from the homepage
from @escorial
lack of discipline when it comes to arbitrary global nav additions or additions to homepage content.
from @oaknd1
Organizing the Web site based on internal structure. It gets messy when reorgs happen.
from @khristine
Having a list called “favorite links” or “popular links” or even just “links”
from @rachelreuben
We nearly forgot to include links to Athletics in a redesign we did. Lucklily our user testing caught it.
from @jamesvandyke
3. Not planning for the long term
planning for launch, but not for future maintenance (empty/stale news or events areas)
from @chasgrundy
4. Inaccessible
non-accessible design and programming
from @escorial
Non-accessible flash
from @escorial
5. No Goals
No overall goal
from @codyfoss
6. Design/technology elements that don’t add to the site
Large images w/ no purpose
from @codyfoss
Using technology because it is new. ie moving items, drawers or ajax like tabs that are not intuitive.
from @nickdenardis
Cluttered homepage. They should be a nice mixture of relevant information + message by branding (emotions play a great roll)
from @escorial
Too many PDFs, instead of developing pages around that content. And yes, my school does this, and I hate it.
from @cfast
Flash for the sake of Flash.
from @davelowe
Weather on the hompeage?
from @nickdenardis
7. No Quality Control
no strong personality to advocate for overall site quality in the face of endless changes.
from @oaknd1
Bad quality images, pixelated or taken by somebody at the office.
from @escorial
8. Committees
Committees. Everything has to be decided by a committee.
from @lanej0
design by committee
from @escorial
9. Designing for the organization and not the user
Thinking anyone cares about long blocks of (link-free) text about mission statements and insular, jargon-filled content.
from @TimNekritz
politically-motivated nav and design rather than research- and user-centered design. my gripe of the day (wk., mo., and yr.).
from @stealingsand
Spending more time worrying about the message from the dean than successful ROI paths.
from @nickdenardis
10. The Rest
Making arbitrary rules like “everything must be accessible within two clicks of the homepage”
from @nickdenardis
Not having a mobile-friendly site.
from @barbchamberlain
a link for ‘prospective students’ that points to admission. the WHOLE SITE is for prospectives. don’t pigeon-hole.
from @theParanoids
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