It was a week of firsts. LaGuardia Community College had by far the brightest colors I have seen on an institution’s Web site. The site looked like a teacher’s store, especially with the apple in the top right corner. Beyond the graphics the larger problem was finding program information, it was mildly difficult, but just a few tweaks can make a world of difference. And not to mention there was no consistency of voice on the menu items. The code of the site was at the same level as the visuals and information, it didn’t fail completely but didn’t knock it out of the park.

Scripps College deserves the A it received. The visuals overall are clean and they actually used the right column on their homepage to push the new and events, something I have not seen before. These sections are constantly updating and it is nice to see them at a glance without having to scroll. Finding program information is not a problem at all and their code is up to industry standards. Overall Scripps has a great web presence.

Lastly, Monash University was plagued with problems from the start. The 100% width was a huge distraction and eye soar. It made the pages hard to scan and really disconnected related information. As monitors get larger over time it will make variable width sites harder to use. But worse than the design finding program information was almost impossible. I was led in a loop a few times before finding program requirements. Luckily someone is looking out for the code, it scored pretty high and raised Monash’s overall score to a D-.

If you’re interested in having your university (or one of your competitors) reviewed publicly or privately feel free to submit your site. Over half of the sites reviewed on EDU Checkup are by request.

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.

Three sites this week, starting out pretty good was Royal Roads University. The site had an amazing use of white space and positioning. Everything had it’s place and it was easy to scan. But diving deeper the right and left columns stay static no matter which page you are on. This is great to get information on each page but takes precious real estate away from related information.

Free-Hardeman University almost hit it out of the park. The visuals and use of photography was awesome but they had a bit of an issue with lack of information for each major. Getting to each major was intuitive but then learning about them left something to be desired. Their code though was one of the few A’s, and just a few changes and it could be an A+.

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia had more problems than I could count. For starters the homepage had announcements for current students that took prominence over prospective student areas. The second was the huge menu, six levels deep! Unfortunately the information and code didn’t get any better. I am thinking a complete overhaul is what this site needs.

If you’re interested in having your university (or one of your competitors) reviewed publicly or privately feel free to submit your site. Over half of the sites reviewed on EDU Checkup are by request.

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.

Both sites this week did a great job! Their scores would have been higher but the code category pulled them down. The first, Deeside College had by far the most calls to action I have seen on a college site. Every page had at least one or two buttons for next steps and multiple options for a student to get a hold of an actual person. Phone, Email, Text and even live chat. The visuals and colors were vibrant and exciting. The site would have totally got an A if the code was more optimized. Something very simple but can potentially make the world of different for users.

The second site, Carnegie Mellon University – Heinz College didn’t far so well on visuals. The site overall is pretty bland, it sticks directly to their identity. The rigidness of the templates made the site feel cold to me. But they did a good job putting related information to the degree programs in the side columns, the “How much can you earn?” is a good touch. Like Deeside though the code quality really brought the site grade down, but again a few simple things can make a world of difference.

If you’re interested in having your university (or one of your competitors) reviewed publicly or privately feel free to submit your site. Over half of the sites reviewed on EDU Checkup are by request.

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.

Just one site this week, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gave us a few things to talk about. The vibrant colors really pull a user into the photos. The homepage wrapped student photos with a frame that showed more movement than the typical higher ed site. The menu items being in all capitals were hard to scan, although they were in alphabetical order it is easy to loose the first letter when they are all the same case. I think one area of improvement can be applied to the use of space on the child page. On most child pages the left hand column has 200 pixels of blank space  and the right column always stays the same. If they utilized that left hand space it would shorten up the length of the pages. In addition having related items on the right hand side would allow for some call to actions above the fold related to that specific page.

Overall the site was not bad, it did what it needed to do and scored pretty average.

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.

First week of the new year started out with some great lessons. First the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh College of Business has a very clean and easy to scan design. I wasn’t met with too many challenges but the one odd thing that stuck with me was the high prominence of an “admissions podcast” which ended up just being a single audio message. You could tell this was a non-web department decision since it didn’t add any value to the experience and a podcast is meant to be a stream of periodic updates.

The second site, Otterbein College didn’t far well at all. Initially the user is hit with a big red button that steals the attention from the rest of the page. Beyond that the navigation issues were countless. When I clicked to get more information about a program I was taken to the department homepage where I had to re-learn the new navigation to get to the program information all over again. This is not something a perspective student would have the patience for.

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.

This week seemed like a flop, Western Illinois University got a “D” and Hope College got an “F-”, but there are some pretty important lessons here. The first is as you can tell from the screen shots above the web changes fast, your users will know in a few seconds how much effort you put into your site. the two sites look like they were designed over five years ago. Interestingly enough Western Illinois looks like it was only launched a year or so ago (from what I can tell).

The second is navigation creep. The navigation for the two sites probably accomplished all the users and institutions needs when they launched. But over time things have been added/moved/removed which deteriorated the effectiveness. The most apparent is the right column of the Western Illinois University site, it is now packed and nothing stands out anymore. Lets take a ride on the Way Back Machine to see how clean the right column was when the site launched. It’s a shame.

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.

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.

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.

Another full week of episodes, three sites with completely different strategies. The first, Claremont had great intentions but when it came to executing it didn’t pan out so well. The homepage was overtaken by large graphical tabs with news and events in mixed columns. Last but not least cutting off their news titles won’t help users decide if the article looks interesting. Their site review got picked up by their online newsletter, CKC was great about responding to my comments and are on their way to solving existing issues.

Tasmanian Academy took a non-traditional route to their design and didn’t stray a single shade from their blue and yellow colors. Although the site was visually appealing and had a unique personality when it came to getting information they didn’t fair so well. Their final score was not so bad but with a few tweaks here and there could really help their prospective students.

Last but not least, with the highest score this week, Duke University. They launched their redesign this month and boy was it a change. They added an incredible amount of life and interactivity to their homepage and child pages. Their program information was still a little scattered but they are definitely moving in the right direction. I cannot wait to see what they have in store for the next few iterations.

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.

Last weekend marked the first birthday for EDU Checkup! With this exciting milestone comes a few goodies. The most important is a regular schedule and the return of the weekly wrap up on eduStyle. The others will be coming shortly.

This week I reviewed three sites, Colorado State University, Fairfield University and Grove City College. Great stuff going on with all three especially in the area of design. My favorite was Colorado State, it was the most contemporary and spacing was very well defined.

The use of photography really set the tone and identity for these schools, the weakest use of photography went to Groove City. Not because their photos were bad, it was more about of the location of the photos, they did not have high prominence compared to the other.

I hope you enjoyed the reviews this week and stay tuned next week while I continue on the regularly scheduled episodes.

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.