[webproducers] my feedback, was New website

Dear Amy,

I realize that this was posted a while back, but I haven't checked my
[webproducers] emails in a long time.

Anyway, here are some comments (mostly based on the homepage):

1) Homepage Message
As a marketing communications specialist the first thing I do is examine
where my eye goes and what the first message I get is -- in this case, there
are NO messages on the homepage -- not even a tag line, a mission statement,
or a description of JTS.  You may assume that your audience knows who or
what you're all about, but they may not -- and even if they do, some type of
marketing message will make a lasting and positive impression.  For example,
an east coast ski resort in might say, The best skiing in the North East.  A
spa might say, "The ultimate in relaxation and pampering."  When coming up
with a tag line, use your mission statement, which should be written with
the audience benefit in mind.  For example, a manufacturer that makes hockey
sticks might have a mission statement that reads, "To manufacture the
highest quality hockey sticks," but their mission statement should be "To
enable superior athletic performance by manufacturing superior quality
products" or some such variation.  Translated into a great homepage tag
line: Enabling superior athletic performance with superior quality products.

2) Changing Homepage
It is winter right now -- seeing a spring/summer picture of your building
looks funny to me.  In winter, I'd like to see a picture of the building
with snow maybe.  Perhaps even you should have several pictures of the
campus and each loads randomly each time the homepage is accessed.  You
could have the same image in different seasons, as well as show off your
library, hallways, lecture halls, etc.  Here's another tip from the print
world: when you use photographs, it is always a good idea to have
accompanying text that tells the reader something about the image.  Images
attract attention, and when there is no message, the attention is wasted.
Why is the image there -- to say we have a beautiful campus, or look at the
great courtyard you can hang out in?  Whatever the reason, associate some
marketing message with the image.  You have included text, but the message
could have greater impact to achieve your goals.

3) Browser compatibility
Congratulations - many sites do not render properly in Mozilla.  The type of
navigation used is often rendered incorrectly, among other problems.  It is
good that you made your site browser compatible.

4) Meta Tags
I found no keywords or description tags, nor any of the other search engine
specific tags.  Perhaps search engine visibility was not part of your site
goals/objectives.  What is the goal of the site?  One is to attract eligible
students, but are there secondary goals such as public awareness and
education?  Do you want search engine traffic?  If so, you this site can be
better optimized, although that is a much longer discussion, and requires a
page by page analysis along with a communicated understanding of each
individual page's goal.

5) User Experience
When clicking through the site, I am unsure why the quick links and search
were dropped to the bottom of the page.  There is still available "real
estate" on the top, and this kind of change may confuse some.

6) Page Resizing
Resizing the page to fill the browser is a neat thing you can do on the web,
and I encourage it from an esthetic point of view.  But, from a user point
of view, I strongly suggest setting maximum parameters for content.  Ideal
column widths are between 8-12 words -- anything more than 12 is just too
hard to read, and users are likely to glance at the page looking for a small
"sound bite" they can easily digest.  If all they see are long long lines of
text (I counted 20 words in many lines on
http://www.jtsa.edu/development/index.shtml) they will simply click to the
next page.  Check your site logs and see what the average amount of time
spent on each page was -- was it long enough for the average reader to
absorb the key messages of the page?  Of course, there are other strategies
which must also be incorporated to get more visitors to actually read
content, but column width really stands out and is easy enough to fix.

7) Breadcrumbs
It took me a while to figure out why it said JTS / something on all the
pages.  I was confused, and thought it was giving me the option of going to
other pages.  Even Jakob Nielson has trouble with this on his site, using a
colon for his breadcrumb pattern.  His site has no graphics so it loads
quickly, but he had to give in, and use an arrow graphic in order to show
users that the there was a hierarchy at play.   That is why many use this:
one > two > three.  That is a better way to show path than the forward
slash.  Plus, most sites that do this effectively do it in a special
space -- yours is floating in the middle of no where.  I recommend you
discuss this with your designer, and find a better way to designate the
bread crumb.  Do you really require it even?  It is mostly used on sites
with more than 3 levels of content.  Perhaps place is in the same place you
have the << back link on the contact page.

Overall, I think the layout, and color scheme are attractive and modern.
Clearly, you have also spent a considerable amount of time on the
information architecture, which is very important.  I wish you lots of luck
with your new site and hope the redesign/implementation meets the objectives
that warranted a new site in the first place.  I hope my comments are useful
to you.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

~Darren

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "A.Helfman" <amhelfman@xxxxxxxx>
To: <webproducers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 10:36 AM
Subject: [webproducers] New website


>
>          The Jewish Theological Seminary recently launched a completely
> redesigned and restructured website. Please visit us at www.jtsa.edu.
> Comments welcome.
>
>
>   Amy W. Helfman
>   Manager of Web Technologies
>   Computer Operations, Jewish Theological Seminary
>
>   Voice: (212) 678-8043              Fax: (212) 678-8891
>   Email:  amhelfman@xxxxxxxx    Website:  www.jtsa.edu
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
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