Current state of faculty and school sites
Staff said:
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Current state of faculty and school sites
Staff said:
Tired design
- Tired, complex, unattractive and difficult to use.
Too much content
- Too much on most pages and too many layers of page. Maintenances is time consuming so time-sensitive information is often out of date. Quality suffers. (e.g. spelling mistakes, links that don't go anywhere).
Content
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management is challenging
- Lack of time and resources (especially writer) for web content. Too little time for many to become/stay proficient in Squiz.
Staff profiles:
Most staff can't maintain their profiles
- Difficult to maintain, so often out of date. Very dated/tired look. Gives a poor impression of the University.
Too many channels
- Channels: Too many channels with the same information as the web (and as each other). Students still miss information despite repeat listings. Would like social media listed more prominently.Analytics:
Make analytics more widely available
- Needs to be more widely accessible and used, especially data on goal conversions.Search:
Site search gives poor results
- Site search doesn't always give useful results. Results are often dominated by courses and not what really matters.
Research approach
- Workshops with representative staff members from all faculties and some schools, augmented by one-to-one conversations with senior general and academic staff.
- Views above represent those present and are not necessarily true or held by all staff.
- As such, this information is input to our decision making, not necessarily what we propose to do.
Students said:
Why are they different?
Future and current undergraduate students didn't understand that faculty and school sites existed as separate sites "This should all be one thing – school, faculty and Victoria. We are one university and there is no reason why it can’t all be together."
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- As channels for information from Victoria, with all students also following relevant pages on Facebook.
Postgraduate students
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had greater awareness
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- That faculty and school had separate sites, but still had a very narrow information need (staff profiles, administrative services, forms, etc).
Secondary school students
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didn't understand the roles
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- Of faculties and of schools at all, let alone their web presence.
Research approach
User research interviews were held with six senior students from local secondary schools and with six current students in various years of study.
- Views above represent those present and are not necessarily true or held by all staff.
- As such, this information is input to our decision making, not necessarily what we propose to do.
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- Are usually (but not always) less busy, and the highest traffic areas are staff profiles; research and (in some cases) resources for specific courses. And much of this traffic comes from the subject and degree pages on Homesite.
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Data is from 1 July – 8 December 2015, with total page views exceeding 15,000,000
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Future direction of the Victoria University website - www.victoria.ac.nz
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Information organised around user need
- The Victoria University website will is being reorganised around user need or task, with no expectation that users have prior knowledge of our organisational structure.
Reduced duplication of content
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- There will be less duplication of content: Increasingly, information will have a single source yet be surfaced in multiple places according to need.
New technologies to augment Squiz
- New technologies are being introduced that will augment Squiz, allowing us more choices and better solution options.
Site search will be improved
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- Improvements to the site search will be undertaken as BAU, with priorities influenced by WIP2 need
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Staff profiles will be redeveloped
- Improvements to staff profiles are in scope for WIP2, and the work will be performed by ITS, the Web Team and the project team.
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Faculty and school web areas
Structure
Each with its own area or space
- Each faculty and each school will continue to have it's own area (or subsection or space), but no longer individual websites.
- They will be less distinct from each other as they are now which means users see see the appearance of an single organisation.
- Further, upgrades and maintenance become easier, while still providing each f&s with it's own online space.
Audience determines purpose and content
- The faculty areas and school areas must be different from one another: Each has a clear purpose and identified target audiences, so the content should be different. They will be much simpler to use and maintain than currently.
Option of single blended area
- Faculties with only one school might prefer to have a single blended area and downplay the difference between the faculty and the school. Faculties where this might be suitable include Law, Engineering, and Education.
Design
- The faculty areas and school areas must be different from one another: Each has a clear purpose and identified target audiences, so the content should be different. They will be much simpler to use and maintain than currentlywill have a new design that is engaging and works well on a mobile as well as larger screens (as we are presently doing with the subjects/topics and degrees.
Content
- Content currently on these sites that follows a standard university approach (i.e. isn't unique or truly faculty-specific) will be located in the appropriate area of Homesite (e.g. student well-being and support will be located in 'Current students'). The driving reason for this is a desire to make orient our website around the needs of our users, not our organisational structure.
- Content that is best viewed as core to the university will be centrally located on Homesite (but can be surfaced on faculty and school sites as and when required) (e.g. the courses we offer, the subjects we teach, scholarships available)
- Content that is best located in one place to meet a user need can still be maintained by the appropriate people (e.g. Research centres, institutes and chairs could be located in the Research hub, surface on school sites, and be maintained by the same web administrators as now).
- Some types of content will be 'authored' centrally, then pulled through to faculty areas and school areas (and other relevant locations) via keyword tagging and/or search widgets (e.g. faculty and school news and events; staff profiles, etc).
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- Graphic/promo links will be integrated into the design.
- Text links will be integrated into the content.
Design
- The faculty areas and school areas will have a new design that is engaging and works well on a mobile as well as larger screens (as we are presently doing with the subjects/topics and degrees.
Content improvement
- Most of the content that is currently on faculty and school sites will be moved pretty much as is, with some trimming and some rewriting depending on need and resourcing. Attention should be given to the needs of the target audiences and therefore the writing should be in appropriate language, formatted for online readers, have more visual elements and be more engaging.
- 'Features' (eg, student experience and project profiles) will be rationalised: We will consider carefully what they cover, and over time they will be more closely aligned with News, include more multimedia, and provided on a "reuse if possible" basis.
- Guidance will be provided to faculties and schools to help them address some of the content management issues they mentioned at the workshops. This will include advice on content planning, and tools and techniques for keeping content current. It will draw on effective practices identified in the workshops, and expertise and prior experience within the web team.
- Findings will be shared from user research and testing sessions.
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