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.

This week on EDU Checkup I only reviewed one site, The University of Chicago on location in Chicago. Unfortunately not on campus but close. The visuals and use of the web as a medium are amazing on the site. The code is equally as good, careful planning and execution has taken place with both.

The Tip of the Day came from placing the javascript includes at the bottom of the page which gives the appearance of a faster loading page. Remember, perception is reality, if you can shave off 10-20 milliseconds off load time your users will notice.

I wish I could say the information on the site followed suit but it just fell short. Like most other universities each department has their own site and agenda. This is great for the deans but not for the users, each link jumps off to a different site and a new navigation forcing the user to re-search for what they are looking for. Its unfortunate because if it were shored up this site would hit it out of the park.

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 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.