To Web-Walkers:
Next meeting: February 14, 1996, 3:00 pm, 209 Manning: Planning a new home page for UNC-CH
Topics: audiences, topics for each audience, and mission of the UNC-CH Web site.
Summary of February 7 meeting on planning a new home page for UNC-CH. This summary will be posted at http://www.unc.edu/about/walkers/1996feb07.html
Thanks to Cynthia Taylor for help with notes.
I led this discussion on what's wrong with the current home page (http://www.unc.edu/) and looking at other campus home pages that people particularly like.
I distributed copies of the following agenda/handout.
Redesigning the UNC-CH Home Page
Web-Walkers, February 7, 1996
Judy Hallman (judy_hallman@unc.edu), Office of Information Technology
Introductions
Need help with notes
Assumptions
* The University's Web presence will be incorporated into the
campus strategic planning process as a principal means by which
the University will pursue certain strategic goals
* The Campus-Wide Information Service will continue to grow at a rapid rate; departments and organizations that do not currently have Web pages, will create them; more courses will develop web pages, and more instructional materials and research information will be placed in the campus Web
* The new home page may only last a year (we are on our 6th or 7th design now, since '87)
The plan
* Meet weekly until we're done. If the group is too big and this
approach doesn't work, select a committee
* Post summaries of meetings at http://www.unc.edu/about/walkers/
* Design content of at least the first two levels; plan graphics
* Implement the design as we plan it, for discussion at the next meeting
* Get feedback from faculty, staff, students, and administrators
* Clifton Metcalf, Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations, and his staff have the ultimate responsibility for the University's image on the Web
Time Schedule
* Aim to have a draft for review in five weeks; complete in
eight weeks
What's wrong with what we've got?
* Handout: E-mail to info@unc.edu; mostly from people not on
campus; see http://www.unc.edu/about/walkers/infomail/
* Can't find directory
* Can't find admissions info (application form, tuition, entry requirements)
* Redundancy between Student, Staff, and Faculty sections
* People don't know that Welcome to UNC-CH is a clickable.
* Can't find sports information.
* Can't find history and mission.
* No good way to make announcements -- like University is open/closed during bad weather.
* Graphic is slow to load.
Some questions and considerations
* Should Events be a home page item?
* Should Publications be a separate item or should you get to a publication from a department or organization; for example Newsletters (do we have all the newsletters here? sometimes issue number or date is part of the URL)
* Will need a good place for Public Service information, and for Instructional information, and for Research information -- for public consumption.
* It's not clear whether pages are FOR (students, faculty, staff) or ABOUT. Do we need to make this distinction?
* Are there different types of pages for different audiences?
* Should we have a "Welcome Mat?" -- see http://www.charweb.org/
* How do you feature an item (like a special event)? See http://www.charweb.org/home.html
* How do we draw people to the UNC-CH Web -- for example, highlighting the lastest and greatest stuff, like Java?
What do people like?
From: Kay Stanley (extraid@email.unc.edu)
The pages I like the best have the following characteristics: photos that show what the campus looks like good use of graphics with the photos and/or the buttons "sculptured" backgrounds (i.e. subtle emblems carrying out the theme) no conflict between th color theme and the link colors good use of spacing and font size www.cwru.edu (Case Western) * www.virginia.edu * www.vt.edu (Virginia Tech.) * www.nd.edu (Notre Dame) * www.ucsb.edu (U Calif. Santa Barbara) * www.hampshire.edu www.ilstu.edu (Illinois State) www.fit.edu (Fla. Inst. of Tech.) www.ewu.edu (Eastern Wash. U.)From: "Howard M. Fried" (refried@email.unc.edu)
There is a survey of the best university home pages at:
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/cdemello/results.html
Quoting from the survey, the characteristics that make the
top pages top are:
Attractive, yet limited graphics.
Easy to find information. In particular people seem to
want to be able to find:
Admissions information
Alumni information
Campus Maps
Email directories
Information about the surrounding community
Research and Departmental Programs
US Postal Address
I handed out printed copies of monthly summaries of questions and comments to info@unc.edu. They are mostly from people off campus and show the types of questions people have and what they can't find. These summaries (Sept. 1995 - Jan. 1996) are online at http://www.unc.edu/about/walkers/infomail/. They're also fun reading.
Jim Sadler said that he was meeting with the Information Resource Coordinating Council that same afternoon about the committee's report on Campus Web policies.
Kathy Thomas and Trey Harris showed several sites (thanks to Kay Stanley and Howard Fried for their suggestions) and we discussed what we liked and didn't like.
There is concern about graphics -- main pages need to load quickly.
UNC-CH needs search capabilities and statistics. OIT people are working on these.
We also need a clickable campus map.
Lynne Neill pointed out the increasing value of the campus Web for students to be able to see personal information (view grades, most recent bill, etc.)
Arizona (http://www.arizona.edu/) has nice buttons at the bottom of each page for significant items, Calendar, Phonebook, Comments, Internet, What's New, Map, Index. We also like their item "Reaching Out - Taking the University outside the campus."
Duke (http://www.duke.edu/) has their credentials right up front -- nice home page. The items in a subject area are listed and are clickable.
Trey likes Washington's "almost live view" (http://www.washington.edu/).
We liked Baylor's organization (http://www.baylor.edu/) and the "NEW" graphic, and their home page loads quickly.
And we liked Carnegie Mellon's home page (http://www.cmu.edu/).
Yahoo has a lot of information on their home page and it's well organized (http://www.yahoo.com/).
While talking about campus directories, someone said that Cornell requires their people to be listed in the directory (at UNC-CH you can choose not to be listed).
Bowling Green State University (http://www.bgsu.edu/) has a nice events calendar (http://www.cs.bgsu.edu/events/). It is maintained via html forms. Userids are authorized to enter events. Hallman has met the person who is working on the programs to maintain the calendar and will get more info.
We looked at Charlotte's Web's Welcome mat (http://www.charweb.org/) and their home page (http://www.charweb.org/home.html). The picture on the home page and featured article change often (weekly?). We'd like the UNC-CH system to be dynamic. Perhaps a magazine format would work -- having features and regular sections.
We agreed that we need good photos; and we want to look at load time between gif and jpeg files.
It was suggested that we carry through basic characteristics (like Arizona's buttons) to lower levels.
Homework assignment for next meeting (Feb. 14, same time and place):
(1) List audiences
(2) List topics for each audience
(3) Mission statement for our Web site
Attendees:
Deb Aikat, JOMC, daikat@email.unc.edu
Margaret Balcom, Gazette, mpbalcom@email.unc.edu
Janet Blue, School of Nursing, jan_blue@unc.edu
Andy Broughton, Social Work, abrought@email.unc.edu
Frank Di Mauro, UNC Hospitals, fadim@med.unc.edu
Kathy Edwards, OIT, kathy_edwards@unc.edu
Erika Grams, WUNC/History, erika@email.unc.edu
Judy Hallman, OIT, judy_hallman@unc.edu
Trey Harris, OIT, trey@unc.edu
Bob Kessler, Chemistry, bob_kessler@unc.edu
Robert S. Kintz, SPH, rkintz@email.unc.edu
Tong Liu, CPC, tongliu@xerxes.cpc.unc.edu
Matthew Mauzy, Dept. of Physics/Astro, mmauzy@physics.unc.edu
Lynne Neill, ADP, lcn.admin@mhs.unc.edu
Roger Nelsen, GAA, roger_nelsen@unc.edu
Regina Oliver, GAA, regina_oliver@unc.edu
Cindy Rhine, DCRP, rhino@ils.unc.edu
Jim Sadler, Health Affairs, jim_sadler@unc.edu
Barbara Semonche, JOMC, semonch@gibbs.oit.unc.edu
Tom Smither, Rom. Langs, tasmithe@email.unc.edu
Cindy Taylor, OIT, cetaylor@gibbs.oit.unc.edu
Kathy Thomas, OIT, kathy_thomas@unc.edu
Penny Ward, ORS, crunchy@email.unc.edu
Judy Hallman (judy_hallman@unc.edu, http://www.unc.edu/~hallman)
Office of Information Technology