Comparing Websites of Universities: Brunel University, Royal Holloway and the University of Reading - Article Example

Student’s Name] [Instructor’s Name] [Class] Website Comparison Introduction The viewpoint of a potential student of management studies is broad indeed but it is such a viewpoint which could frequently be presented to universities. Essentially, such a student could be searching for a variety of information including fees, prospects of accommodation or even understanding what s/he could gain from attending the university. A comparison of the websites of three universities i.e. Brunel University, Royal Holloway and the University of Reading is made to show what positives and negatives could be gathered from the websites considering the notions of information architecture, information organisation and interaction design. The Comparison Considering the elements of information architecture, the organisation and categorisation of information seems to be the most important element. In this regard, Brunel clearly stands out from the other two since the webpage at Royal Holloway does not have direct links which can take a person through the website to a page which gives relevant information on the subject of management at the undergraduate level. Reading’s website is a close second to Brunel simply because Brunel provides a method to jump directly to the undergraduate course name based on the first letter of the program a person is interested in while Reading’s website makes the individual go through a list to scroll to the right degree a perspective student of management would want. The presentation of the information is quite logical with clearly defined labels that are easy to follow. This is true for all three websites since even from the home page, it is easy to see certain links which take the user directly to other pages which contain relevant information. However, the labelling system on Royal Holloway might take some getting used to since it was not easy to find relevant information from the home page. The site also lacked internal consistency since the drop down menus which come up on the homepage; do not reveal themselves as the user goes deeper into the website. This might be a navigational problem for someone who expects the submenus to come up when they do not. When it comes to searching for information, Reading’s website provides a search box on the homepage itself which can be a useful approach. The other two websites require the user to click on a link which takes them to a separate search page A simple search test on the website reveals interesting details as Brunel’s website clearly shows the Google logo and reveals itself to be using Google's search tools to index and search across its pages. While such an approach can be cost effective, it might be better for the university to index its own pages and focus search terms towards relevant pages. However, even with Google's search, the third link on the page takes the user directly towards the Business and Management BSc degree while the first link gives a list of postgraduate courses. Perhaps if the university uses its own search tool, the results might be different and more focused. Similarly, Royal Holloway also uses Google’s search to display results and their top result is the facilities management at the university. While this is clearly not what our student is likely to be searching for, the third link on the results page would take the potential student to the School of Management at the university. The search services at Reading’s website are also powered by Google but their top link would take the student directly to the School of Management’s page. Further, since they have the search box at the top of the homepage, it gives their search greater visibility and usability as compared to the other websites. An important theory of Human-Computer Interaction is given by Fitts’ law. As described by Amento et. al. (1996, Pg.1), “Fitts discovered that movement time was a logarithmic function of distance when target size was held constant, and that movement time was also a logarithmic function of target size when distance was held constant”. In essence, larger sized links on a webpage are easier to click therefore prominence should be given to the links which are considered important. Brunel appears to use this law more effectively than the other two websites since the submenus on the Royal Holloway website are quite small while the vast majority of links on the Reading website are made up of small sized text. Advantages and Disadvantages of www.brunel.ac.uk Perhaps the greatest advantage which a potential student of management would find at the Brunel website would be that in just a few clicks, the student could be at a page which gives a lot of information about the study of management at the university. In cases where the student is simply going through the website to get some basic information, the site wins hands down. However, when it comes to looking for detailed information, the university seems to focus on the idea of getting a prospectus which might essentially repeat the same information presented online. Once the person gets to a relevant page, e.g. Business and Management (Marketing) BSc. The information on the website is clearly laid out in sections of which the most relevant and possibly important ones have their own sections. While this can be advantageous since it allows students to get to the information they need, some information such as the financial cost of the degree is buried deep in a few more links and does not clearly lay out what the total cost of the degree would be for the student. In fact, the burial of information through links and pages which contain rather abstract information could be seen as a disadvantage of the website. While the university would not like to give out information that could be misinterpreted or avoid scaring away potential students simply by showing them high fee figures, the practice might also frustrate those potential students who simply want to know how much their education would cost them. This can be addressed if the cost figures are laid out in a table that shows what kind of financial aid can be expected from various sources and what sort of costs are expected to be incurred over the course of the degree. The overall user interface of the Brunel website is quite good since once the user is into the website, the links on the header of the page remain static and allow the potential student to quickly jump from one location to another. Even though the links on the left hand side of the page change depending on the context and the page the person is on, the links at the top of the page allow for stability in design with the ever present search link that can let the student locate any keyword s/he is interested in. Recommendations The first recommendation which can be made for Brunel is to create a search system that allows the university to control what results are shown for particular keyword searches than allowing Google to index and rank the pages. Undoubtedly, Google is quite good at what it does but the university could perhaps be a better judge of what search results should be ranked higher than others. This could be quite beneficial to the university and to the prospective student if the university conducts some usability studies in how prospective students use the website. The university would therefore need to find out the priorities of the prospective student in terms of search and use of the website. For example, if it is reported that prospective students appear to be most interested in the housing offered by the university, the data concerning housing should be given prominence and other information such as work placement could be given less importance. For example, the information on course aims is made the first link on the submenus on the Business and Management (Marketing) BSc while “How to Apply” is actually the second last link in the submenus on the page. Moreover, while the site extensively uses page anchors, the left hand menu navigation seems to disappear once an anchored link is clicked on. It might be useful for the left hand set of links to be brought down with the anchor to give an easier approach for the student to go to another section if s/he so desires. At the moment, the user would have to scroll back to the top or click the top anchor button to get back to the top of the page where the menu links are placed. Additionally, JavaScript and other tools can be used to allow a user to expand the submenus on the left hand side of the page without leaving the page they are currently viewing. Of course, this might be difficult to do when the left hand links keep changing but perhaps a more ordered system for the organisation of the links on the left hand side of the inner pages would solve the issue. Such ordering of information may also make it easier for a user to relocate the information once they have navigated away from it. Conclusions Information architecture, interaction design and usability can only give us guidelines on how to best present information in a manner where it is easy to use and easy to digest. However, the real test of the information pacakage presented to the users comes from real life examples. Undoubtedly, the university receives a lot of emails, phone calls and questions towards the officers of the university regarding one or more types of information. These questions are perhaps the best guide for what information could be lacking on the website and how the answers to the questions might help potential users. Overall, while all three universities have excellent websites, there is no reason why they cannot be improved upon. Works Cited Amento, B. et. al. 1996, ‘Fitts' Law’, [Online] Available at: http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5724/g1/ Brunel University. 2008, ‘Brunel University’, [Online] Available at: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/ Royal Holloway. 2008, ‘Royal Holloway, University of London’, [Online] Available at: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/ University of Reading. 2008, ‘University of Reading Top Ranking University for Research’, [Online] Available at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/ Read More