Touting such features as a constant theme and easier accessibility, the College of Humanities has recently set up a new Web-page design.
“When we designed the Web page, we focused on two things and built around them,” Randy Madsen, multimedia specialist for the College of Humanities, said. “Faculty links and syllabi links were key points.”
The college’s new Web design features a red border or heading on every page, consistent locations of link buttons, and the title of the individual department displayed in the same location.
Features such as these would be desirable for the whole university, Madsen said, because users would know immediately where to find important material.
Madsen has received positive feedback from nearly all the departments saying that each individual Web page was easier to control and edit.
Madsen said he designed and developed the new Web page to update the old Web site and to make it function better.
“A lot of the department Web sites didn’t look like they belonged to the university,” he said. “Some of them were blue and white. We wanted to make the Web page cohesive and similar.”
Stuart Culver, the English department chairman, said that the new Web page makes introducing people to the English department much easier.
“The design allows faculty (members) to manage their own Web sites better,” he said. “We are excited about (the new design), but it is a work in progress for us. We are still working on getting all of the bells and whistles operating correctly.”
Mark Woodland, assistant vice president for university marketing, said that the new Web-page design could also be useful for the entire university.
“Every college, department and program has gone after individual identities,” he said. “This makes our Web sites look like a disorganized house.”
He said that the inclusion of bars, headings and logos would provide enough consistency throughout the university sites to allow a person to realize they have reached a part of the U.
However, Woodland said, it is unlikely that all university Web sites will be required to follow exact specifications.
“We want to allow freedom for every department,” he said. “If one department wants to have the syllabi link on the right side rather than the left, that is fine.”
Both Madsen and Woodland said that the new design would allow students and faculty-especially those with limited Internet experience-to easily and quickly navigate the Web pages.
Madsen also said that the new Web page should be easy to change in the future-a feature that past Web sites did not have.
To see the new Web site or learn more about the College of Humanities, visit www.hum.utah.edu.