Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:00:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Judy Hallman <hallman@email.unc.edu>
To: Web-Walkers <web-walkers@unc.edu>,
Web Advisory Committee <webadvisory@listserv.unc.edu>
Cc: Mark McCarthy <maggot@sunsite.unc.edu>
Subject: Summary of March 16 Web-Walkers meeting
To Web-Walkers and Webadvisory lists:
Summary of March 16, 1997, Web-Walkers meeting:
Planning the Design of the New Web Presence
Scott Jared <sjared@email.unc.edu> and
Debashis Aikat <daikat@email.unc.edu>
Web Walkers, March 16, 1998He mentioned that the committee also plans to look at support for offices. And he mentioned that the Hospital recently wrote an RFP, and he has a copy of it.
Update on Web Advisory CommitteeDirective:
To hire and oversee the work of someone or a group who will design a new Web presence.Work:
Reviewed development and history of current homepage.
Looked at some UNC-CH pages.
Analyzed homepages of peer universities and other schools.
Identified the committeešs purpose:
Began working with Academic Technology Networks to develop a Request for Proposals.
Identified possible steps in developing new Web presence:
Market Research, Graphic Identity, Mapping/Structure, Policy developmentCo-Chairs:
Deb Aikat, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, daikat@email.unc.edu
Scott Jared, Office of University Advancement, Publications Coordinator, sjared@email.unc.edu
Committee Members:
Dana Bayley, Office of University Advancement, Design Coordinator
Barry Bayus, Professor, Kenan-Flagler Business School
Carol Binzer, School of Nursing, Director of Student Services
June Blackwelder, Friday Center, Director of Publications and Promotions
Dean Bresciani, Student Affairs
Lori Casile, Information Technology Services
Neil Caudle, Director of the Office of Information and Communications within Graduate Studies and Research
Sally Chadbourn, Student Government Representative
Mona Couts, Information Technology Program Officer
Bert Dempsey, Professor, School of Info. and Library Science
Judy Hallman, Campus Webmaster
Liz Lucas, Special Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor
Roger Nelsen, General Alumni Association, Director of Alumni Records and Information Systems
John O'Brien, Student Stores, Marketing DirectorRecording Secretary: Stevie Miralia (Publications & Design Services)
ATN Support: Janet Tysinger
Deb conducted a discussion of Web site structure and design.
He showed a page ( http://www.unc.edu/courses/jomc050/97-98/faves.html) of "Sites I Like . . . and Why," prepared by one of his students (Wendy Robinson). We looked at Stanford University (http://www.stanford.edu/), Cal Tech (http://www.caltech.edu/), and Word (http://www.word.com/).
The Committee will be working on the structure and design of the top pages. Standards and policies will be established for department pages, but the existing freedom of expression will be maintained.
We talked about the search engine. The user interface is not intuitive; particularly using commas to separate terms. One person mentioned that he never found what he was looking for; examples were clubs and courses; lots of hits come up from the Daily Tar Heel, but not the items he was seeking. Searchers need to be able to search specific sections of the database and to exclude sections. Another person said he tried to search for "Graduate School" and got a lot of hits, but the Graduate School's home page is not near the top of the hit list.
Deb asked about searching the campus directory. There was agreement that the search mechanism is good; we find what we are looking for. There was a suggestion that the Submit button be moved up.
It was suggested that we have several ways to get into the campus Web. Besides the Web pages and their links and the search engine, a site map would be helpful.
Who are our audiences? How can we related the character of the University in our home page? What IS the character of the University?
Carolina blue text is hard to read. The group seemed to favor black on white for text.
Distance Learning, School of Public Health (http://cdlhc.sph.unc.edu/), redesigned their home page. They wanted it to be scroll free. They used usage statistics to find out what people most often looked at. There is scrolling on lower-level pages.
RegWeb (http://regweb.unc.edu/) is clever. It was designed by students (Melissa and Marcus). The icons on the left are ordered by number of hits, except that Search is always first. Thus, grades moves to the top at the end of the semester, registration to the top during registration, etc.
Our home page needs to be welcoming and open and interesting. It should be a living, breathing thing. The menu based on CAROLINA is weak. Viewed links should not be the same color as unviewed links (both are blue on the campus home page).
As we design, we need to be sure it can be easily accessed by people with disabilities, including the color blind. We should continue to use international date standards. The pages need to be "text-friendly," as much as possible. And Web content managers need to have someone on campus who is officially a copyright consultant and can field questions about copyright for Web use.
We should put a discussion forum on the home page for discussing the redesign. [The page is ready, but not linked in yet.]
We looked at the Student Stores page (http://www.store.unc.edu/). It has an interactive campus map (http://www.store.unc.edu/map/) and a video camera focused on the Pit (http://www.store.unc.edu/cam/). Deb said that when students were buying books, the camera showed the line at the counter so students could judge whether or not it was a good time to buy their books.
The interactive map probably should also be linked higher up or included in the Campus Maps and Photos section (http://www.unc.edu/welcome/maps/menu.html). Currently, there is no one maintaining the maps and photos section; it was put in as a class project. We should have more photos, perhaps one that would change daily. And there is no group responsible for providing directions to the campus.
We need a standard graphic for the tops of pages -- a standard set of graphics. Graphic elements should be simple, so that they don't require a lot of time to download.
The sports pages (http://tarheels.unc.edu/) are good, but there is a general dislike for advertising, and it takes up space. We shouldn't have any advertising.
It was suggested that we survey campus use of our web site (a random sample) and survey guidance counselors and other outside users; have focus groups during development; get feedback during development, especially from librarians and James Coggins, Computer Science. How do we track what people need?
We need a graphical identity. The Graduate School is also looking for a graphic for its redesign (currently being developed at http://www.unc.edu/~rbstepno/gs/).
The Center for Teaching and Learning (http://www.unc.edu/depts/ctl/) has recently revised its page.
The Academic Technology and Networks page (http://help.unc.edu/) is being redesigned now. The current page worked well to start with, but now has too much on it.
We need a design that is stable; and file names should be constant (should not have dates in them). Broken bookmarks/links should not happen. Web pages need to be printable, without printing tons of stuff.
Encourage student input.
One person wanted more help for units considering the purchase of a Web-accessible database. He also wanted better coordination between campus units considering such purchases. Positive benefits would include the possibility of units joining together to purchase licenses, and more support for negotiating the technical aspects of database licenses with vendors. Passwords entered into this discussion. Scott said that the password issue is outside the committee's current directive. Need mechanisms for distributed updating, for example for posting info on committees subject to open meeting laws. NCSU's campus calendar (http://www.support.ncsu.edu/Calendar-bin/home.pl) is an example of a Web page that has several people updating it.
The committee is eager to get input. The next step is to work out the time frame.
Libby will send it by e-mail to the Web-Walkers list.
Judy Hallman (judy_hallman@unc.edu, http://www.unc.edu/~hallman/)
Campus Webmaster, UNC-Chapel Hill