1. Put a libraries link right on the left side of the home page.
Currently the link path to the libraries is not immediately obvious.
Now that the library catalog is available only on the web (or so I'm
told), it is essential that access to it be as easy as possible.
2. I found myself worrying how hard it would be to find other things
in the new site. If you have not already done so, I suggest running
the site through tests with users who were not involved in
development. Give them lists of information about the university that
they should go looking for (it shouldn't matter whether the goal pages
are designed by you or by other NIU departments). Have them note how
hard or easy it was to find each item.
3. The "Alumni," "Current Students," etc. buttons at the bottom of the
first page seem odd. My first expectation was that they would be ABOUT
these groups, rather than information selected FOR these groups. Once
I looked in, I wondered, "How can I be sure they know what I really
need?" I felt I had to make 5 or 6 trips into the site instead of just
diving in for the information I really wanted. Exactly what is the
function of this set of buttons? Is it "extra stuff," or different
ways of organizing the same material, or 5 separate selections from
the same set of material?
3a. If the buttons are just a way of putting out "extra stuff" (which
is what I hope they are), then identify them that way. Call them
"Alumni News" or "News for Faculty" or "Hot Stuff for Prospective
Students." That way(i) people will know they don't really have to
click on the buttons, and (ii) when they do click they will find
exactly what they expected.
3b. Avoid making visitors wait for ads to load if they are just
looking for information. On other peoples' sites I find such waits
very irritating. If your site is not high priority for me (i.e., if I
were a merely "curious" prospective student), I'll give you maybe five
seconds. Ten seconds, tops. In my office, the pages loaded quickly.
But I'm not sure how they will do in a public library, school library,
or home computer. Do you have plans to test this?
4. In the web search section, it seemed odd to include a single search
engine while claiming that its use does not imply endorsement. Yes, it
does imply endorsement, because why else would you use only that one?
Also, please add some instructions on how to use the search engine and
what users might expect to find with it.
4a. If you do take advantage of the suggestions that NIU's CGI
programmers design their own search engine, will that mean that the
rest of us will finally be allowed to do interactive pages on
university servers?
Hope these comments are helpful.
Edwin Zehner
Southeast Asian Studies
seap@niu.edu