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Web co-ordinators' forum notes
8 May 2001
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invitation
to the forum
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Sara Head shared some feedback from the recent external review
of the University's web site (performed by Riley Consultancy), including
details of the more positive aspects of the site, and suggestions
for improvements. She then gave a brief introduction to the draft
of the new University home page, designed with input from the University's
Marketing Unit, and clearly oriented towards prospective undergraduates.
Partcipants were then asked for comments on the proposed developments.
Whilst some appreciated the fresher look to the home page, there
were some comments regarding the proposed categories / labelling
of links from the home page. The concerns included use of terms
that had currency for University staff, but perhaps less relevance
to the intended audience (e.g. "prospective students"
as a term), the provision of an inviting and relevant link for non-standard
(e.g. mature, part-time) students, and the fact that two of the
links led to the same page, which is generally unexpected behaviour
and therefore confusing to users. The issue of accessibility was
also raised, with particular reference to the provision of text
alternatives to the image text, and the use of stylesheets that
would enable the user to alter the text size on the page.
Sara has welcomed the feedback, and the team will be looking into
all comments received, and are working on making the changes suggested.
This is still work-in-progress and the web team would like to encourage
web co-ordinators to continue to provide feedback to help in their
developing of a new University presence.
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