1996-02-07: planning a new home page

Summary of February 7 Web-Walkers meeting (UNC-CH)

Summary of February 7 Web-Walkers meeting

Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 10:26:59 -0500

From: Judy Hallman (hallman at gibbs.oit.unc.edu)

To: web-walkers at unc.edu

Subject: Summary of February 7 meeting on planning a new home page

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 at 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 at 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 at 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 at 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 at 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 at email.unc.edu

Margaret Balcom, Gazette, mpbalcom at email.unc.edu

Janet Blue, School of Nursing, jan_blue at unc.edu

Andy Broughton, Social Work, abrought at email.unc.edu

Frank Di Mauro, UNC Hospitals, fadim at med.unc.edu

Kathy Edwards, OIT, kathy_edwards at unc.edu

Erika Grams, WUNC/History, erika at email.unc.edu

Judy Hallman, OIT, judy_hallman at unc.edu

Trey Harris, OIT, trey at unc.edu

Bob Kessler, Chemistry, bob_kessler at unc.edu

Robert S. Kintz, SPH, rkintz at email.unc.edu

Tong Liu, CPC, tongliu at xerxes.cpc.unc.edu

Matthew Mauzy, Dept. of Physics/Astro, mmauzy at physics.unc.edu

Lynne Neill, ADP, lcn.admin at mhs.unc.edu

Roger Nelsen, GAA, roger_nelsen at unc.edu

Regina Oliver, GAA, regina_oliver at unc.edu

Cindy Rhine, DCRP, rhino at ils.unc.edu

Jim Sadler, Health Affairs, jim_sadler at unc.edu

Barbara Semonche, JOMC, semonch at gibbs.oit.unc.edu

Tom Smither, Rom. Langs, tasmithe at email.unc.edu

Cindy Taylor, OIT, cetaylor at gibbs.oit.unc.edu

Kathy Thomas, OIT, kathy_thomas at unc.edu

Penny Ward, ORS, crunchy at email.unc.edu

Judy Hallman (judy_hallman at unc.edu, http://www.unc.edu/~hallman)

Office of Information Technology