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.

We have an amazing list nominees and judges for the 2nd Annual eduStyle Higher-Ed Web Awards. This year’s  response to the People’s Choice voting has been incredible (we passed last year’s totals in 4 days). Thanks to everyone who has been helping us by spreading the word. Due to an amazing list of nominees we still have some really close races in many of the categories and the winners will be decided by votes cast today. So if you haven’t voted, your vote could be the decider. So go vote and spread the word so that we can honor the best of higher-ed web design.

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