It's a great article which everyone managing a university website should read. I'm sure if you've ever been involved in a redesign you'll have encountered the same things that Matt covers in his article.
Matt says:
University websites try so hard to be everything for everyone. Not wanting to make anyone unhappy (especially internal stakeholders) with a site makes it unfortunately more complicated. Many times, it seems that the only strategy is NBNW — new boss, new website.He lists common university complications. How many of these can you tick?
- Overuse of news headlines and event listings on homepage
- Direct links to external and internal resources without staging or explanation (social media, portals, etc.)
- Huge scrolling pages with nested navigation
- Large left-right scrolling feature blocks
- Hover menus, fly-outs, and mega menus
- Student, faculty, staff profiles lack keywords or descriptions
- Missing high-value trigger words such as “apply, give, visit, contact”
- Vaguely branded resources and clever marketing-language naming instead of simple action-oriented labelling
A must read for university website managers.
Matt references a presentation on the paradox of choice which is also worth a look.
It prompted me to look further for info on a psychology study I read about a few years ago about shoppers sampling and buying jam. In a nutshell, offering six options resulted in greater sales than 24 options.
Freakonomics article summarising and challenging choice paralysis research findings
It prompted me to look further for info on a psychology study I read about a few years ago about shoppers sampling and buying jam. In a nutshell, offering six options resulted in greater sales than 24 options.
Freakonomics article summarising and challenging choice paralysis research findings
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