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

Site	Visual	Information	Code	Overall
The University of Alabama – Episode #129	98	93	99	(290/300) 96% A
Pomona College – Episode #128	49	70	22	(141/300) 47% F-

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.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 9:06 am and is filed under EDU Checkup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.