Web Sites

General Observations

This year, the judging for the Circle of Excellence Category 10: Web Sites was held at the University of Colorado-Boulder, hosted by Boulder’s award-winning Web team. Fourteen judges convened in April for two days for the judging. We judged all of the entries in Category 10—a total of 153—and the 20 sites entered in Category 12 (Technology Innovations), for which a separate report is available.

This category is for “innovative Web sites or pages developed for any institutional use.” And the entry form warns: “Do not enter only your homepage for evaluation. Judges will only be looking at multi-page/-layered sites or pages.” And indeed we do!

In previous years, we judged institutional Web sites against special-purpose sites. This year, we split them up. Category 10A (Complete Institutional Web Sites) included 41 Web sites representing the entire institution and we judged them against each other. Category 10B (Individual Sub-Web Sites) included 112 entries of special-purpose Web sites. These ranged from campaign sites to alumni sites, virtual tours, admissions sites, annual reports, search sites, and others.

Judges represented American and Canadian universities and colleges—public and private. The panel included people with experience in design, PR, Web strategy, Web content development, Web technology, and marketing. More than half of the judges won national CASE awards for their Web sites.

Trends

What makes an award-winning institutional Web site? We asked ourselves that question before we began viewing the sites. Here are some important elements:

• a sound strategy
• sound information architecture, navigability and usability and good search
• content developed for the site and deployed effectively across the site
• effective management
• distinctive or appropriate design—the look and feel of the site
• technology used on the site and adherence to standards
• evaluation plan—and results
• strong institutional identity that is consistent deep into the site

We also look at whether the site does something particularly interesting or unusual. It’s easy to make a site look good—and there were some examples of sites that presented a welcoming appearance but lacked significant features that make the site truly usable. For example, a number of sites looked great but lacked a search function and were not well-organized, so it was difficult to find basic information. Many great-looking sites had sub-standard content or lacked coherent messaging.

Some sites we explored are clearly reaching for “wow.” But wow in and of itself isn’t enough—without functionality, wow quickly becomes annoying. Another shortcoming overall was a decided lack of great content—we saw very little great writing or video on any of the sites we viewed. Too much of the writing was characterized by the usual university-language clichés. And, often, excellent content was buried deep inside the site.

In last year’s judges’ report, I began with an observation that’s worth repeating:

“Competition in this category is very rigorous and winning is very difficult. Details are important and small mistakes stand out—one reason why it’s very difficult for overall institutional sites to win an award. The design of a site may be stunning, but if it’s badly coded or its content falls short, it will be rejected. Likewise, it’s difficult for great content to rise above a bad design.”

Seemingly small details—like not being able to easily return to the home page or dead links—can sink an otherwise excellent site.

In all, we agreed that while institutional Web design has come a long way, there’s still a long way to go. In general, sites are better organized and there’s more consistency in interface and navigation across the site, which makes it easier for visitors to navigate around them.

We didn’t see much evidence that institutions are identifying or tracking results. Here’s another observation from last year that bears repeating:

“… we still don’t see enough serious attempts at assessing how effective Web sites are. How can an institution justify spending hundreds of hours of staff time—and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars—on a Web site and not know how effective it is? Honestly, we don’t care if your site has won other awards or if people say they like it. [Which is not to say that we don’t pay attention to comments and results from usability testing when they make a point relevant to your award entry.] What’s important is that you can demonstrate that you set measurable goals and that your site has met or exceeded them.”

While we did give awards to sites that were newly launched and didn’t have much to report in the way of hard results, we yearn to see more indication that institutions take assessment seriously and do it—or include their website as part of a larger institutional research agenda.

The Process

This year, we used a process that has evolved over the past 10 years of judging Web sites in this competition and that seems to work well.
The judges were divided into four groups, balancing skill sets in each group--so that a single group did not have two designers or two technical people, etc. Each group began by viewing one-quarter of the entries. During this stage, the judges eliminate sites that are hard to access, have poor content or interface anomalies, are hard to navigate, contain confusing content, load too slowly, or display other quirks that judges believe do not reflect current industry best practices or meet the highest standards of Web design. The goal was to end this round with about 15 sites left for the Category A (Complete Institutional Web Sites) and about 30 for Category B (Individual Sub- Web Sites).

Judges often make quick decisions as they view these sites, but there is a good reason for this: if a site doesn’t communicate quickly, then it fails as a Web site. If its purpose isn’t clear or we can’t figure out where to click, there’s a good chance that other visitors will have the same problem. If there’s weak content on the home page, why should any visitor look further? If the site takes too long to load—and you’d be surprised at the wait times for some sites, even when viewed on computers connected to a high-speed network—why should a visitor wait?

During the next round, all the judges look carefully at each remaining site, taking notes and evaluating the site to see how effectively its creators have met standards for technology, design, navigation, and content—and can demonstrate some results. Then we discuss each of the remaining finalists—often sharing our own particular area of Web expertise. Initially, each judge has his or her favorites for an award, but some of these selections don’t stand up to the scrutiny of the group as we collectively explore the sites—and argue about their strengths and weaknesses. In the end, we achieve consensus, presenting this final list of award winners.

Note that our hosts, the University of Colorado at Boulder, earned two awards for their work. We did not allow members of the UC Web Team to participate in the initial groups that included their sites and asked them to leave the room when the rest of the judges discussed the eventual award-winning Boulder sites.

If I were the sole judge of this category, my list would be different from the list below. And each judge could make the same statement. But all of us stand by this list of award winners as the best of entries that we viewed this year.

Complete Institutional Web Sites (10A)

This subcategory included sites designed to represent the entire institution, from the homepage down. In the past, we’ve noted that it’s difficult to have all the parts of a great site come together at once at an institutional level, and this year was no exception. You’d think that small institutions—a school or a college—would have an advantage here because the scope of work is less than that of a large university. But you’d often be incorrect in your assumption. We viewed many sites that contained good ideas that were only partially realized. For example, one site had a lot going for it: an appealing design and quality content, but the text on the site was tiny and reversed out of a blue background. Another that looked great had a huge Flash animation on the homepage—and lacked a search tool. For this reason—inability to provide a great experience across the board—we did not give any gold medals in this category.

Silver Medals

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

• This site represents a significant redesign of IUPUI’s entire Web presence and touched more than 200 unique Web pages. The site was updated with a new visual redesign and new content, including images and video, print optimization, and Web 2.0 features such as RSS and video podcasts. The judges appreciated the colorful design and the consistency with which the design was carried through a significant portion of the site, as well as the way that new content—such as the podcasts—were marketed. The content that we browsed was also very well done—and the site as a whole well organized and engaging. The redesign was undertaken and completed by an in-house team, which makes the site that much more impressive, and it was no surprise to us that audience members were so complementary on it. Ongoing assessment of the site will happen as part of the institution’s market research program.

McGill University

• We all know how hard it is for a small institution to launch a high-quality, integrated Web site—and that it’s particularly difficult for larger institutions. That’s one reason that McGill’s site is so impressive. McGill’s redesign provides what one judge termed “a gutsy approach for such an established institution.” In general, the site is well thought out, it’s easy to find information, and the content is quite good, including many effective, high-quality images: there’s a lot of information here, but it never gets out of bounds. And not just in English, but in French, too! The site was conceived, designed, and programmed by an in-house team. One of the objectives was to increase page views of the newsroom; page views went from 159,000 during the six months before launch to 1,852,162 in the six months after launch.

Bronze Medal

Virginia Tech

After it launched a new branding initiative centered on the tagline “Invent the Future”, Virginia Tech embarked on a redesign of its Web site. Before the re-launch, there had been turf wars between offices on campus and part of building a new site was to create a more effective management structure for it. The redesign involved vt.edu and selected sub-domains, including admissions, news, podcasts, and the president’s and provost’s sites, among others. A significant internal team worked with an outside firm to accomplish the redesign—with Phase Two scheduled to include a significant number of additional departments. The new site illustrates significant improvements in consistency and usability over the older design(s)—and the new management structure clearly worked, allowing Virginia Tech to communicate effectively and well during a time of institutional crisis.

Individual Sub-Web Sites (10B)

These sites—developed for special purposes for particular audiences such as prospective students, alumni, or others—allow an institution to develop a coherent, deep Web experience for visitors. It’s often easier to build a special-purpose site: there are usually fewer political issues, a clearer purpose, and more of an opportunity to measure results–assuming, of course, that there is a plan in place to do so.

It’s not surprising to us that the two gold medal award-winners are aimed at student recruitment, since there is ample opportunity in student recruitment to reach a Web-savvy audience that can benefit from a highly interactive, content-rich, well-designed Web presence. Having said that, however, we were surprised at the lack of originality among these entries. It should be easier to build a special purpose Web site—but it apparently isn’t easy to make it compelling enough to be an award winner.

Gold Medals

University of Colorado at Boulder, “Choose CU”

• The Web team at UC Boulder does excellent work and has won awards in the past for their sites. “Choose CU” exhibits the same thorough, extremely well-thought out approach as has these other Boulder Web sites. This is a portal for admitted students and there are personalized and customized links with all the information an admitted student needs before he or she arrives on campus. These students are making a connection with Boulder, conducting business, and still getting a few marketing messages to help them make their decisions. There is a lot of content on this site, but it’s all well-organized and it’s all well-written—and it’s easy to get around the site. While the mind boggles at the number of internal stakeholders represented by this comprehensive resource, what the visitor experiences is a uniform whole. Plus UC Boulder has evaluated “Choose CU,” which was used by 72 percent of the students who entered in Fall 2006, and the site was used repeatedly. At the time of the confirmation deadline (May), around 300 students were logging in a day to use the site. Early in the 2007 cycle [late February], 23 percent of admitted students and 74 percent of confirming students had already used the site. The site was built by the university’s Web Communications team working with Information Technology Services and the Office of Admissions.

Xavier University, “The Road to Xavier” [Login as username: mosey; password: test]

• “The Road to Xavier” is another portal for accepted students and their parents. One element that differs from “Choose CU” is that Xavier offers a rather more edgy experience to its visitors. The goal for the site is to inform accepted students and to move them to accept Xavier’s offer of admission by providing a fun and interactive way to allow them to interact with each other and other members of the Xavier community. The site offers many features common to Web 2.0 sites such as a profile; ability to contact others through IM, email, etc.; blogs; a YouTube-like video site (called BlueTube—and would you guess that blue is an XU color?); and personalized information on financial aid and other admission-related matters. The university does a good job of infusing “The Road to Xavier” with messages about campus life and culture—while none of the judges were familiar with Xavier, we had a real sense of what being there might be like from this site. The university exceeded its goal for the site: 66 percent of students said the site positively influenced their decision to enroll and the enrollment of the class exceeded the goal by 20 students.

Silver Medals

National University Institute for Wellness and Peak Performance, “San Diego 6”  

• This site was created to promote a healthy lifestyle for children by Sand Diego6 TV show. The judges agreed that the site was well-designed for its audience and the subject matter and was engaging with podcasts, games, and other content. We particularly enjoyed the games created for the sites—they were even engaging for adults, since some of the judges played them! As part of an integrated curriculum in third grade classrooms, it was effective in improving health knowledge, fitness, and technology use and understanding.

Trinity University, Virtual Visit

• This admissions microsite was created to allow Trinity to communicate with prospective students during a typically inactive period—between their request for information and freshman matriculation and was part of a larger university marketing campaign designed to engage out-of-state students. Trinity uses a variety of content to tell the story of life on campus, including video, to provide a sense of place, both on-campus and in San Antonio. The tour holds up well and loads quickly. Trinity reports an increase in applicants and SAT scores over three years and an increase in out-of-state applicants over two years, indicating that the marketing campaign (of which this site is a component) is working.

University of Colorado at Boulder, The Beza Mahafaly Lemur Biology Project

• This site grew from a PowerPoint presentation designed by a faculty member to communicate her research into lemur conservation. The budget for the site was limited to $1,000, making it the lowest funding of any award winner. But the results were, in the words of one judge “Just terrific—I want to spend a lot of time on this site.” The focus of the site is on video and photography of lemurs—and it's fascinating footage. The team creating the site spent a lot of time rewriting research findings to ensure that they were still valuable to researchers, while remaining accessible to more general audiences. The redesigned site has enabled the researcher to broaden the visibility of her research and the site itself, leading to increased external links to the site, increased accesses, and increased emails about her work.

Bronze Medal

University at Buffalo, Dalai Lama Web Site

• This site was created to showcase a three-day visit of the Dalai Lama to the University at Buffalo. It includes program details, video of his appearances, and a great deal of related content. Now, since the visit is past, it serves as an archive of a high-profile campus event and a community resource. This is a beautiful site—perhaps the most visually attractive site we viewed, with an appealing color choice.