This week on EDU Checkup we learned a lot. All three sites look very professional but often looks can be deceiving. No matter how appealing the site is if you cannot find basic information it can get frustrating fast. The last thing you need is frustrated users, always remember content is king.

The demand for a central tip archive has been overwhelming. Instead of waiting until I can categorize and create a nice searchable page I decided to just put up all the tips for now and what site they are referenced to. They are available on the Tip Archive page. Each will soon be categorized into “Design”, “Information” or “Code” later this week.

If you would like me to review your site or one of your competitors you can submit it on the Suggest a Site form. I can do a public or private review in case you don’t want to share your rock star success with the world.

• University of Colorado Denver – School of Education and Human Development (C-)
• Bob Jones University (A)
• The College of William & Mary (B-)

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.

I’m excited to be presenting in a webinar series along side Nick Denardis (Wayne State University and EDU Checkup) and Tonya Price (Worcester Polytechnic Institute). The series runs from April 21-23. I’ll be reprising my presentation from last years series on the Top Trends in Higher-Ed Web Design with new examples from this last year of redesigns (there have been a lot).

Registration closes April 9th, so register quickly while there is still room. Then gather your team members around your computer or in front of a screen with a projector and enjoy the series. For more information about the series visit the information page at Higher Ed Experts.

We always say we should do usability testing. We add hours into our estimates. We write it into the schedule. But we never seem to do any testing.

We have to find people, schedule them to come in, design the tests, execute the testing, analyze the results, and make recommendations for moving forward. It’s a big production, even for a low production testing process. It takes a long time and since it’s not an emergency, it’s easy to slough off and forget about until it’s too late.

We decided to try a different approach.

Weekly Testing, Whether You Need it or Not

There’s always something worth testing – the latest mockups, some wireframes, the navigation on a site, whatever.

So here’s the plan:

Monday

Call or email subjects and invite them to participate. Offer a gift card and promise that it won’t take longer than 30 minutes. The goal is to get five scheduled per week, for each Friday. Get a mix of students, staff, and faculty.

Wednesday

This is the best part. At our team meeting, we decide what to test. It might be a new feature or a site in design or development. Discuss how to test what we want to test. We only have 30 minutes with each person, so we have to divvy that up appropriately.

Friday morning

Do the tests. Record them (with a signed waiver, as needed). Give gift cards. Say thanks. Ask if they’d come back to do it again some time.

Friday afternoon

Get the whole team together to watch the results and discuss. We’re bringing in lunch and blocking out two hours to do this, but it all depends on how you want to work. I suspect that this will be easier and shorter as we do this more regularly.

The Actual Tests

The most intimidating part is doing the test. I suggest you go in prepared.

If you haven’t read it already, go take two hours and read Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think!. If you haven’t read it and my blog post wasn’t enough to convince you, at least check out the user testing chapters and usability script Steve has posted for free.

Software

You can make the software side really easy by using Silverback (Mac only) for quick and cheap or Morae (Windows only) for comprehensive and pricier. If you’re looking for something cheaper for the PC, there are some cheap alternatives to Morae.

Here’s a demo I whipped up with Silverback in 5 minutes. It took longer to upload the video to YouTube than it did to download, install, and record the demo.

It’s nothing special – but it’s ridiculously easy and doesn’t take any work to set up. I guess that kinda makes it special.

Selling it to Your Boss

Don’t bother. Seriously, it’s $50. Can you get approval for a $50 piece of software? Then go buy it and just start. Call up some co-workers and folks you know. Schedule them for Friday morning. Find something to test. A website you launched last month, for all it matters. Ask some questions – even if it’s just “surf around and think out loud for me.” When you learn something, that’s when you show management. If you still need to.

The key to testing is to test. You learn a lot more testing anybody than by testing nobody. So, test early and test often. A regular testing program is like breathing – when it’s always there, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

This week on EDU Checkup I took some requests. Each had their own strengths, West Virginia had great visual appeal, Ferris State had great information and University of Melbourne got the first ever 100% on code.

With each site comes a “Tip of the Day”, I have been getting quite a few requests for a listing page of tips. Instead of just lisitng them all by week I am going to categorize them and make them searchable before making the page live. I just find something random and talk about it but if you want to hear something specific I am open to it. Is there any categories of tips you would like me to cover?

If you would like me to review your site or one of your competitors you can submit it on the Suggest a Site form. I can do a public or private review in case you don’t want to share your rock star success with the world.

• West Virginia University – College of Human Resources and Education (B+)
• Ferris State University (B-)
• The University of Melbourne (B-)

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.

We’re pleased to announce that the eduStyle Guide is now available in either electronic or print format. We again want to thank the entire eduStyle community for their support. Without the community this book would not be possible.

We hope this will be the first of many books from eduStyle. We’re already in the early stages of development on a few future publications. If you have any suggestions for authors or topics you’d like to see us cover, please drop us a note books@eduStyle.net. If you have already purchased a copy of the book don’t forget to do the survey (check the thank you email for the link).

Since 1998, finalsite has been bringing interactive web design & software to leading independent schools & educational organizations around the world. finalsite currently serves over 250 independent schools and colleges a total of nearly 700 schools & educational organizations around the world. We’re pleased to welcome them on as the primary sponsor of the 2009 eduStyle Awards. Without the support of great companies like finalsite it would be impossible for us to dedicate the time needed to make eduStyle a success. So please check out the amazing services they offer and thank them for supporting the eduStyle Awards.

For more information or a free demonstration contact finalsite:
education@finalsite.com | www.finalsite.com

You can follow them on twitter at www.twitter.com/finalsite

We’re almost 2 weeks into the nominations for the 2nd eduStyle Awards and the nominations are rolling in steadily. Thanks to everyone who has submitted and nominated a site over the last couple of weeks. We’re trying to keep up with the submissions, but it may take an extra day or two to get to yours. If you have submitted a redesign, don’t panic if it doesn’t show as redesigned right away, we’re trying to keep up and it will show up as soon as we catch up.

Anyway, with all of the nominations we have noticed that some of the top sites over the last year have not been nominated for any awards yet. You’ll be helping the whole community and the quality of the awards if you take a minute and nominate a few of the best sites for awards. Here are some places to find some good award worthy sites:

Noteworthy Sites

Each month two sites are selected as Noteworthy based on the votes of the users of the site. Here are some of the most recent Noteworthy sites:

Popular Sites

Top sites over the last year based on number of votes for the site:

Redesigned Sites

Sites that have been reported as redesigned:

It was an all request week on EDU Checkup, three sites all requested by users for public review. The first two were pretty average but the last could use a complete overhaul. My biggest pet peeve came out as a tip too, there is no need to have a “last updated” date viewable on a web page. Everyone has a different opinion of up to date content, and if they think it is even slightly out of date they will either pick up the phone or even click the back button to leave your site.

If you would like me to review your site or one of your competitors you can submit it on the Suggest a Site form. I can do a public or private review in case you don’t want to share your rock star success with the world.

• Clemson University (C)
• Virginia Military Institute (C-)
• Chesapeake College (F+)

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.

In addition to the work on the upcoming eduStyle Awards, I’m also helping to judge the Edu Blogger Scholarship Contest. This is an exciting contest with $2500 worth of scholarships going to a blogger in higher-ed. I accepted the invitation to help judge the contest because it has a lot of the same goals of the eduStyle Awards, to recognize some of the great things going on in the higher-ed web. So don’t miss your chance to get some much deserved recognition. The deadline is quickly approaching, you need to get your entries in by Tuesday March 17.

It is really easy to enter the contest, all you have to do is:

1. write a post about online education or education online,
2. include the contest badge in the entry and
3. fill out the form available on the contest page.

For full rules and regulations, visit the contest page.

We’re so excited to announce that the electronic version of The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher-Ed Homepage Design is now available.

Here are some of the reasons you need this guide.

• Get External Validation of Your Design Ideas
• Learn Best Practices and Common Pitfalls of Higher Ed Homepage Design
• Get Tips To Improve the Usability of Your Homepage
• Find Out Leading Edge Design Trends
• Discover Common Themes Between Noteworthy Winners

We review many of the Noteworthy sites over the past 2 years including…The University of Louisville, Rice University, Denver Seminary, University of Notre Dame, Biola University, Boston University and more.

Full details and a sample section of the book are available on the the book page.

As a thank you for all of the support that we are getting from the community we are giving away an iPod Touch to one of the first 100 to buy the book. At time of posting this there is still time to get your name in, but it looks like they may not be much time to get your name in for the draw. Again, thanks to everyone for the positive message and support.

When will the Printed Version be available?

We’re just working out some of the final details of the printed version, but didn’t want to delay the electronic version while we work it all out. We expect it’ll be ready in the next two weeks. There is information on the book page about how to be notified when the book is released and get a discount. We’ll also be repeating our iPod Touch promotion for those ordering the printed version, so it could pay to be on the email list.

Last Point

Karine Joly posted a quick review of the book on CollegeWebEditor.com.  Go read her first impressions.