Chapter 10: Navigating The College Website
Alise Lamoreaux
“A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.”
– Author Unknown
A college website can be like a cookbook, full of great information and ideas, and can be completely overwhelming. Where do you start? Looking at the pictures? Scrolling down through the information? Can you taste the food in your mind just by looking at a picture? Can you imagine a food just from the list of ingredients? Is the number of ingredients needed to make the recipe exciting or paralyzing? How experienced a cook you are can impact your reaction to the cookbook.
As you begin navigating new information, remember, world-famous chef and author, Julia Child wasn’t always a great chef! In fact, when she got married, she could barely cook. Experience isn’t everything. An open mind is paramount. Let the joy of discovering be your guide.
“Take risks and you’ll get pay offs. Learn from your mistakes until you succeed. It’s that simple.”
– Bobby Flay, Master Chef
The role of a college website has changed substantially over the past few years. Student expectations for easy, accessible information drives colleges to get as much information online as possible. It also can lead to a battle for what information makes it onto the home page and how many clicks it will take to find what the student is looking for.
Student services are increasingly utilizing the college website to communicate with students and expecting that students will be proficient in navigating the college website. Students expect to easily locate information; this is helped when the college uses logical organization to the information architecture and design of the website. College websites can be very frustrating to new users, especially if the new user is a first-time college student and is unfamiliar with the underlying structure of the college system. The people creating the college web site may be very familiar with the way their system works and not see the structure as confusing.
Adding to potential confusion can be the lack of ability to view the entire home page of the college depending on the size of monitor or mobile device the student is accessing the website from. Students are increasingly using smart phones and tablets as their primary viewing device for the Internet. Sometimes key information a student needs may be just out of view on the screen. The experienced user knows to make adjustments, but new users may not. Knowing where and how to get started may not be as easy as the “start here” button.
Logical arrangement of information for the college’s needs may not be a logical progression of information for the student’s needs. From the college perspective, students come in different groups/classifications. Here are some examples:
- New
- Returning
- Transferring
- Students needing accommodations
- Local residents
- Veterans
- International
- Student-athletes
- Non-credit/Community Education
- Adult Basic Education
Each of these groups