I agree and disagree with the comic. The large amount of traffic on the website is current students and faculty. The other part of the traffic is students who are figuring out which college to enroll in. For the first group the right side of the comic makes sense, that is definitely the information the University wants to be displaying for its currently students. The left side is where all the money is. The University must be attractive potential students especially in today's culture! With internet access today, you can bet that every person who is picking a college will check out that Universities website, collect some information and compare it to other Universities. After that lengthy process, then the student will visit the campus.
The Art Institute of Portland's website is geared very much to the left side of the graphic. First rather than having navigation or quick links on the left side, the author puts sigh up for more new student information. Upon staying on the home page for a few seconds a scripted window appears asking you to live chat with someone from the school or sign up for more information.
The visuals of AI Portland's website clearing focus your eyes on the different topics you can study at the institute. The viewer's eye goes straight for the the sideshow of students and their works. The home page of this University is not at all geared towards current students or factually members. It is for new student. It is about where the money is.
So, I agree that university websites have the two demographics of new student and current student/faculty, and that generally speaking, what is displayed caters to the new student because that's where the money is. However, is this the best way to go about making the website, or should a university that only advertises for new students work on catering more towards current students and faculty?
ReplyDeleteAfter visiting the website myself, I can see what you are talking about when discussing how future student biased it is, especially the little white box which pops up. What do think the college could do to balance out the problem? And would the improvement they make, lesson their individuality and cause them to blend with other college websites?
ReplyDeleteYou make a really good point about money here, I definitely agree. Also, it's interesting to compare an art school w/ wsu--it sure says a lot about audience expectations and genre conventions. Nice post.
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