I only reviewed two sites this week, each at completely different ends of the spectrum. The first, Pomona College, did doing pretty much everything wrong. From the massive amounts of text on the homepage, the small footprint of the site (800px wide) to the flow of information. The design was definitely dated and so was the style of coding. Using tables to layout the design has been taboo for quite some time now.

On the other hand, it seemed The University of Alabama was doing pretty much everything right. Their site design was clean, to the point and easy to scan. The flow of information was great from a first time user’s perspective looking for a degree program and discovering what else was available. The site gave the user options throughout the whole process and was a joy to use overall. Last but not least the great deal of attention they paid to the code cannot go unmentioned. Their efforts to make the site as accessible and fast loading as possible really shined through.

This Week’s Reviews

Keep up up with @educheckup on twitter and RSS for more site updated in the coming weeks. Or if you prefer, an iTunes feed is available so you can get new episodes automatically.

Links from the presentation:

Articles/Presentations:

• Death of the Relaunch
• Incremental Redesign – A More Manageable Approach to Improving Your Website
• Agile Manifesto
• Site evolution
• The Three Hundred Million Dollar Button
• Tweak of the Week
• Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign

Books/Resources:

• The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher-Ed Homepage Design
• Homepage Usability – 50 Homepages Deconstructed
• Don’t Make Me Think & Rocket Surgery Made Easy
  • 3 Free Chapters from the 1st Edition on User Testing

Services:

• Higher-Ed Website Reviews by eduStyle

Software:

• Silverback
• Techsmith – Camtasia & Morae
• Userfly

Podcasts

• EDU Checkup
• Unmatched Style

Things to see:

• The New Yorker covers
• Archive of Google.com

Overall this was a great week for site reviews, almost all A’s across the board. Each site had a distinct look and emphasized their university colors and smiling faces. It was apparent these sites were redesigned recently and the redesign had a professional approach.

Indiana University East had the most social media presence on their homepage than I have seen on any other university site. George Mason University School of Law had a different approach to their footer content, giving it a more stylized feel. And last but not least Carrol College had a very clean and concise navigation that got out of the way and emphasized their content.

This Week’s Reviews

Keep up up with @educheckup on twitter and RSS for more site updated in the coming weeks. Or if you prefer, an iTunes feed is available so you can get new episodes automatically.