See? They Listen!
Looks like our new website is up and running. Read about it here.
Your thoughts?
I think is an aesthetic improvement. Even better, the new BBB and the Calendar are exactly what students asked for last fall.
On the other hand, 2 and 3L's did get that email from the CDO last night.Further, various links, including the "RSS feeds" link from the BBB page are currently broken [they seem to have been fixed]. The correct link for the RSS feeds is here.
Your thoughts?
I think is an aesthetic improvement. Even better, the new BBB and the Calendar are exactly what students asked for last fall.
On the other hand, 2 and 3L's did get that email from the CDO last night.
Labels: Technology Rants
posted by Patrick Bageant at 9:33 AM
16 Comments:
Banner is too big (length), big black buttons on the top right look tacky.
Otherwise a huge improvement
I *LOVE* the banner length. It's about time websites quit worrying about accommodating people who run 800x600 displays. Nothing hurts my eyes more than big empty white columns to the sides of a page's main body.
What I don't like (I'm nitpicking here) is the yellow bar below the main banner. The buttons there seem clumsy. Just my $.02
It just occurred to me: now that we have an all-electronic BBB, how is Dean Prosser going to stay in the loop about which days there will be beer in the courtyard?
Factulty Profile Page is broken (link gives 404).
re: yellow navigation bar -
smaller font, one row of links. come on here!
Thanks for the feedback. It's true, there are still broken links here and there on the site. We migrated over a thousand web pages at breakneck speed over the past ten weeks to meet today's deadline, so not everything is in perfect order. But we're working hard to sort everything out.
We're also still feeling our way through with the new BBB and the new calendar, and trying to find the best way to promote events.
If you have any feedback, or notice anything amiss, please use the form linked in the footer of the site so we can respond.
Cheers,
Michael Bazeley
Communications Dept.
Dean Prosser? His preternatural sense for keggers transcends paper forms of communication.
The new BBB site is terrible and the Calendar page is severely flawed.
BBB site:
Because this site appears to be in blog format and is organized according to date of posting rather than date of event, events are going to get lost in the shuffle. As the semester progresses, people are not going to want to sort through the mayhem of dozens of out of order events to find out what the happenings are for any particular day. Perhaps the BBB site should be organized in a calendar format. Similarly, maybe the Calendar should reflect BBB posts rather than Room Reservations (see below).
Calendar site:
This site is connected to Room Reservation forms. This creates many problems. First, the Room Reservation form and/or the Calendar set-up does not provide enough information about each event to make the Calendar entries useful for students. For example, view the week of August 25th. On Wednesday of that week, there are multiple "General Meetings" listed. Wouldn't it be nice to know what organizations those meetings are for?
Additionally, what if a group makes a Room Reservation and doesn't want that meeting/event/reservation made public? Also, it would be nice if the phone numbers of people who made room reservations were not be published online with consent of the individual.
The BBB is intended to be announcements-only, with events moving to the school-wide calendar, as explained here. My bad for setting a precedent and letting some events onto the BBB today.
We are still working through the calendar issues, including those raised here. We're not where we want to be with it yet.
We're all anxious for the perfect system that will meet everyone's needs. It's just going to take a little time to get there.
Thanks again for the comments.
Michael Bazeley
Communications
Let me add that the reason for tying the master calendar to the room reservation system is because that captures the most comprehensive baseline view of events at the school. Organizers were notoriously bad about adding events to the previous web calendar, making it somewhat useless.
It's true, though, that a room reservation in and of itself is not a good event announcement. We're developing a way to let organizers enhance their event listings, which will hopefully make the calendar more useful.
The other points about the room reservation info being publicized in this way are duly noted.
Michael Bazeley
Communications
See? They Listen!
The buttons below the banner are a little bulky (and the banner height a bit tall), but overall this redesign freakin' rocks.
The BBB is difficult to navigate, break into logical groups, or understand (I know there are tags on the sidebar, but not everyone has mastered the fine art of tagging). I think it just needs a little tweaking to get it close to amazing, though.
The calendar, on the other hand, is completely confusing. Because events are grouped by title, unless an organization's name was included in the title it's impossible to figure out who's hosting an event or what the nature/details of the event are. Is there a way to fill in these fields when doing the room reservations? (e.g., title of event, one sentence description, host organization?).
Overall, much thanks to the Communications and design folks; this is a really tremendous endeavor, and while bumpy, I'm sure it will turn out to be even more functional and aesthetically awesome.
A second round of thanks to the Communications folks; this is looking much nicer.
Is there any way to get more pictures of people integrated into the banner rotation? I love the variety, but would love to see some more faces.
This is incredibly nitpicky (which makes it inherently perfect for this forum, right?):
Why, under quick links for students, is it "Courses at Berkeley Law" and not just "Courses?" Was there a concern that people would be hoping to click that link and get a list of courses at, say, Stanford Law?
I'm nitpicking because its length makes the column look top-heavy and a bit silly. But that's just me...
As much as I think the new website is prettier (its a huge upgrade), I think its more geared towards promoting the school to the outside world than creating an efficent way for current students to navigate around.
I dislike that it took me several minutes to figure out where the link for OCIP information was...or when I click on course I get taken to a generic list of courses that may be useful for a prospective student rather than a current student trying to find out what room his class was in!
Re finding the OCIP info, or anything else for that matter, don't forget the site search box on every page. You'll still get results from the old site for awhile. But in this case, the top result took me to an informative page.
As for courses, click on the "Courses at Berkeley Law'' link in the For Students tab. I think that'll take you to the info you want.
Michael Bazeley
Communications
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