I suspect that university websites are consistantly awful because they're designed by the students that attend them, students that haven't had enough experience to know what to do and what not to do. So they look at another university site for inspiration, but that one was designed by students looking at another university site for inspiration, and it becomes one big circle jerk of ugh.

Circle Jerk of Ugh is my alma mater; where should I click?

Thanks cmonkey, but while I agree with the circle jerk element (hence my search for the originator), I doubt many universities actually get the students to design them. I also suspect, and I'll have to respectfully disagree with you here, that students would actually do a better job. While I'm mostly guessing, I'd put good money on most of them paying through the nose for something that some committee somewhere gets to approve on the grounds that it looks* better than, or at least as good as, some other university.

*Note, "looks better than", not "works better than".

/Why, taz, you should click on "info for alumni" of course. And, hey, you should know something about this, shouldn't you?

While I ought not to keep posting in my own thread, I thought I should maybe give an example. I offer Columbia, but only because it was the first varsity web site to come up, after a google for "edu", that actually still has this kind of navigation. Even Columbia has more to it than that though, with a few links before the stuff I'm complaining about.

A google (com.au) for "edu" restricted to Australia gives as the first two results, Edith Cowan and UNSW.

Both of these have "about" and "for" sections (though in different order), pretty much like Columbia. This is some concession to the idea that some users want and need "about" info rather than the "for" bullshit. Still, there's the vestige of the crappy university site (the "for" stuff) that I'm talking about.

Erm. Is it just me then?

Ok.

I think I might need a hug, or a tequila, or something.

Check out this atrocity. Impossible to navigate, ugly, and I teach there part-time.

tr33hggr

It appears that in the heartland you get what you pay for....

It could be that the same "sub-heading" would mean completely different thing to the two groups. e.g. Parking would apply differently to students or Staff.

I'd rather Click
Student --> Parking --> Back ---> Calendar
than
Parking --> Student --> Back ---> Back --> Calendar ---> Student.

That, tr33hggr, is exactly what I'm talking about. The top line of "navigation" links are the culprits I'm looking to track down.

I'll stop moderating the thread now, if only to go to bed.

Surely someone has some clues. Who perpetrated this crime against useability?

(Hugs and tequila still accepted).

-University crimes against web design?

Academics are an insular bunch. Often times you find administrators and IT people responsible for presenting material without a clue. My take is because when you get wrapped up in the scholar world, everyone else and their design don't mean a lot unless orginating from the hive.

It's group think without thinking of the outside world.

oops, apologies for the horrendous grammer....Long day.

funmonkey1 - the funny thing about that is they are offering a "pay for one class, get one free" campaign for new Fall students. But, they really do provide a good service to the local area. Just a little behind the times in Web development . . .

tr33hggr

Is it just me, or maybe the concept of school pride and spirit has given way to the delasoul philosophy of "Just me, myself and I"?

I seem to remember a notion of pride. Is it just me or are there no students left that care deeply enough to do something really well just because one can? Especially in such a common skill as quality web design these days. Everyone knows someone who can write a mean script. Sigh. I guess it is the "me, me, and more me" generation holding the rains these days.

also, I have to remember to stop bolding fellow mefites names...It really has been a long day.

GeckoDundee, back in 94-95 when the web was just beginning any school I taught at had all computer related functions reporting to the computer science dept from the school of engineering. Schools were early adopters of www tech so I expect UI design fell to comp sci folks. As you would expect the navigation structure is logical and data structure sound. Unfortunately human minds are fond of lateral leaps across logic. This is a common problem with UIs designed by engineering types. I suspect the circle jerk theory perpetuates it.

Of course without any comp sci input you get too much right brain stuff with things like splash pages, flash sites and myspace.

I would like to see the who nav across the top and the what nav done the side.

At the college where I work, Web design has been taken over by the marketing folks and the site is just awful: the general public gets to see pages and pages of bland buzzword text and lousy navigation menus, while the campus intranet contains the quick links and easier navigation structure.

I dunno, cos I know very little about web design in general, but I do work here, and we all agree the site design is pretty awful and tough to navigate.

I vote for the 'we've always done it this way' theme, backed up by a committee of tenured sporks.

for what that's worth.

While I'm mostly guessing, I'd put good money on most of them paying through the nose for something that some committee somewhere gets to approve on the grounds that it looks* better than, or at least as good as, some other university.

I know this really happened at least once. Even so, the committee-approved and really overpriced redesign could only cover the top page and one level of links. Nothing else could be touched by the redesign because those pages were under the control of the individual departments. Those departmental pages had generally been made using FrontPage or looked like it. I didn't know of any actual graphic or Web designer on the whole campus that was working on a departmental page.

One problem is that anyone with any skill would charge to do something like that. Meanwhile no department would pay for anything like that. The heads of the university can't do anything to departmental turf.

It's hard to coordinate organizations so large. To have good navigation you have to have very clear ideas about who you are, what you want, and what your customers want. Take a look at any large corporation's Web site (Sony, IBM, Pepsi, etc.) and you'll see the same problems.

I doubt many universities actually get the students to design them.
Universities are the gravy train of slick marketing companies who sell web sites. I doubt there is a university anywhere where the UI alone for their site has cost less than several tens of thousands of dollars. I think the problem lies on the fact that those who approve the designs are not those who use the site, which is what perpetuates the problems, because the design companies know the type of thinking of decision-makers and design for that rather than having the guts to design for the customers because the decision-makers won't like it. This is what perpetuates the problem - the groupthink of the decision-makers.

There is some sense in the "who you are" navigation, though - the information you want as a prospective student is different to as a staff member and different again to alumni, so why force everyone into the same mould? The problem is that it is usually poorly thought out.

I know the folks who do the site for the university where I work. The current layout was decided by a committee. Once it had been made live last year, many folks commented on how similar it was to the Stanford site. Especially note the A-Z listings in the upper centers of the pages. The Stanford site has changed a little since then.

Also, ditto what everyone else has said about usability. From what my web design friends say, though, their hands are tied. Makes me glad I got out of web design a few years ago.

And double ditto on the need for tequila today.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm inclined to think that halonine and dg are closest to describing how these things work. Arse-hat is probably right about the actual web site in the sense of the domain, but as halonine points out, it's the top level index page that managment control and spend the money on. That's the page I'm interested in. We're still no closer to idnetifying the first university to use this "information for..." navigation though. Ah well.