Here are a few handy dandy tidbits of info that outline how that data shook out from the web redesign survey we hosted on the homepage a while back. If you didn’t take it, it basically asked questions about how folks use the EWU website, what kind of functionality they think would be good to add to it, and what types of navigation they feel would work best for the redesigned site.
Total Respondents: 167
The composition of the 167 who responded:
Future Students: 8
Staff Members: 50
Faculty Members: 9
Current Students: 73
Alumni: 33
Community Members: 2
Other: 10
How often did they visit the EWU website?
Daily: 44.3%
Once a week: 9%
Many times a week: 21%
A couple times a month: 7.8%
Monthly: 12%
Annually: 4.2%
Respondents were asked to rate the user groups the University website should cater to on a scale of 1 to 9. 1 was most important and 9 was least important. Here are their average ratings per student group:
Alumni: 5
Community members: 6
Counselors: 4.8
Current students: 2.6
Donors: 4.9
Faculty/staff: 3.7
Future students: 2.6
Job seekers: 5.4
Parents: 4.1
Respondents were also asked what website features they’d like to see on EWU’s site in order of importance on a scale of 1 to 12, 1 being most important. Here is the average rating per functional feature:
Current University news: 2.9
Photos: 4.6
Video: 5.6
Virtual tour: 4.8
Events calendar: 3.0
Webcams: 7.0
Podcasts: 6.5
Interactive map: 4.3
Chat with admissions staff: 5.3
Discussion boards/forums: 5.9
Blogs: 7.2
Wikis: 7.9
When asked about what navigation methods people preferred for the website, the average ranking (1 being the best again) looked like this:
Audience links (future students, faculty/staff, alumni, etc.): 1.9
University structure (Academics, Admissions, Athletics, etc.): 2.1
Search (user enters search terms and gets appropriate content): 2.2
Customizable homepage links per user: 2.6
We also gave respondents the ability to provide feedback as they saw fit in freeform text. Here are some samplings from those questions.
What do you look for on the EWU website?
At this point I rarely use the EWU website although I have made a few trips back to look for professors, alumni information, or EagleNet. Every couple months I will check it out just to see what is going on with the University but I never get too far before I decided to just wait for the Alumni newsletter. When I was a student I used it regularly to look for campus information, professor information, events, etc.
addresses, classes, names of teachers, class details, forms
As indicated above, information about other departments that I need to do my job in Human Resources. Secondarily, news about Eastern. Thirdly, information about events.
blackboard, eaglenet,eagleaxis(which is hard to find), transfer guide, library home page
current information about what’s going on in a department. the health and vibrancy of a department is reflected by the website. boring website can translate as boring department.
Contact information “How to” information (in order to help students) Clear, financial aid information
ease of navigation, simplicity, innovation
Emerging academic trends and programs; student/faculty successes; grants and research efforts; university finances
Employment opportunities
Events going on on campus, dates and times for registration and finals schedules
Everything!
I look for information on your preforming arts, sports teams, classes for the career I would like to major in, as well as living arrangements.As well as a spot that I could sign up to get information about your university sent to me.
I use it for research into institutional policies and procedures — but what I use it for is secondary. If it does not draw in prospective students and parents, if we do not show ourselves as the place to be for serious education, future opportunities and current social involvement, we will have lost potential we can ill afford.
Library services and database access, departmental info, directory info
Information. Things I can improve without crashing the CMS. Etc.
What are three things you think absolutely have to be on the homepage?
“Whats Happening Today, or This Week.” See www.spokanefalls.edu for example. Links to Department Pages Links to Staff Contact Info
1 Link to a new rec center events, schedules, fees, classes, etc… 2 Current Campus Events 3 Link to student resources
1) a simple menu on the left or right hand side (with a search option) – Current students; future students; family, friends, and alumni; faculty, staff, and administraton; academics, admissions; employment; financial resources; graduate studies; international studies; student life; student services; and EWU branch campuses/centers 2) event calendar 3) Eagle Net
1) Current campus events showcasing Eastern’s breadth to site visitors. 2) Easy access to financial aid and registration (with a calender of important dates) 3) Departmental links
1. A home page must be small and concise (easy to load) 2. Must have links to the most important and most often used functions of the website 3. Must be current and often updated to keep users checking in for new information. The format must stay the same (i.e. keep important links in the same place)
1. A very clean and intuitive navigation system. The current navigation model works well but takes up too much space and could be better organized. 2. Interstitial slideshow – you have it and it looks really nice. But I have to add that it looks like a viewbook/promotion ad that your users may ignore. Having it be a more organic design that solely focuses on the content and directive may be more appealing over the long-term. 3. Search box because people will always search no matter if your site is well designed.
1. information for prostpective students/admissions/major exploration/housing/financial aid 2. transfer equivalency information 3. how to get registered/ the steps to getting registered using Eaglenet.
Admissions, Athletics, Directory
calendar, exciting things for students to see, and updated campus news.
Current University News, Events Calender and links to different clubs blogs.
Current/upcoming school events, recognized student academic achievement, EWU in the news (local, state, national)
Directory, Visit EWU, and the application link
Fill it with more color, graphics, photos
easy to use links calendar of events info for students/alumni/staff
Easy navgagation How to apply Easy access to offered academics
great graphics illustrating student centeredness and educational excellence
info for current and prospective students info for staff on what they need to know to get their job done the directory needs to include titles of employees – right now when you search a department trying to figure out who to contact, you can’t tell if they are faculty, grad assistants, or secretaries, etc. – this is less than helpful all this info needs to be easy to find, and NOT required to know the org chart to find what you’re looking for
lesslinks, calendar of eastern events, more prominent apply now banner/link
MAKE A DONATION!!!!!
Lots of information for future students. News for the University. More information about EWU for incoming students. Plus teacher information like what classes they teach and personal information like contact, their degree and where they graduated etc.
Quick navigation links, by user type/category (e.g. Student, Staff, etc). Especially one that links to the academic calendar. Currently, this is a challenge to find. Photos – something to make it interesting News/announcements
Simplify it – easier to maneuver Application information on homepage vs. having to search for it Events Calendar
Visit Eastern link (leading to maps) Changing photos (visual energy) Roll-out or drop-down menus (static, single-use links are cumbersome!)
Virtual tours, Photos, calender
Use cookies to track my most recently used pages. Upcoming events and news. Commonly used pages (you list many of these on your blog).
Tell us anything else that’s on your mind as it relates to the website.
Just an observation is that the drop down list for graduate and undergraduate programs can’t currently be read all the way. That’s really a hassle for me. I love the rotating images of the current homepage. I also like the daily EWU news and headlines. A little more standardization between department websites would be great.
1. Things are extremely hard to find using the University links in the lower half of the page. I find almost everything by search. 2. And search pulls up ridiculous amounts of OLD information. 3. Depts who are going to put dated material on their website (curriculum, etc) should be responsible for updating it regularly. 4. Calendar of Events is a useless function unless we’re actually going to put events on it. And in its current format its hard to read things that are happening in the month view. What shows up should be something that people can identify and want to click on for more info. Instead of “1:30pm Boa”.
A picture of a little girl brushing her teeth? I actually thought I’d gone to the wrong site. Something needs to change there. And if you’re doing little cameo shots like that, the page should cycle through several…in relatively short order (because maybe i don’t want to clean teeth for a living…). I think you should also have something about the university in that center section (the part that grabs the eye) – a logo or the word “Eastern” or “EWU” or something… Right now, it almost gives the impression I’ll be linking to something external to the university. The bottom part of the page with the links is good. It seems like the line of links across the top belongs at the bottom. I didn’t link past the homepage, so I’ve no comments further in.
Add real time information when the main homepage opens up. Time, temperature or weather.
At this time the website is very inconsistent dept to dept and area to area. Sometimes there is no logical way to find what you want. A consistent look and content would be the best– ie faculty information, class descriptions, contact information…
Can we do away with the goofy and nonsensical x1234.xml garbage numbers and go back to proper URLs? Who comes up with this stuff?
can’t find anything! thank goodness you are at least thinking about redoing it. simple searches yield no results and basic information is found on obscure pages that are often outdate. on a positive note, the staff directory is awesome so keep that UPDATED and on the homepage! EWU website needs a facelift to keep up with the other universities in the region …. WSU, UW, etc. the current site looks outdated and boring.
chat w/ admissions staff is already on the website. Navigation should go by function and university structure mixed. First, users can select functions they would like to accomplish (visit, apply, register, talk to someone, donate, seek jobs, etc.). If none of the given functions apply, they can use search or link to an appropriate university division.
Compared to other University websites, Eastern’s is AWFUL. It’s very disorganized and I have a hard time finding what I need.
Don’t clutter it, but don’t leave anything out! Good luck!
I have experienced multiple broken page links and some pages are not even updated. The website should always allow accurate information to appear when a user (student or non-student) access our school’s website. It is extremely important to cater it to students (current, future, and even alumni) to keep us coming back because I am sure we are a large contributor of website hits
I know that this has nothing to do w/the redesign of the homepage, but I think that the deparment websites need to be more updated and easier to navigate. I also think that the emails and phone lists should be updated more frequently like maybe twice a year.
I love what Admissions has done with their home page, it is interesting and draws you in. The academic department web sites need more pazaz and character. It seems as if you always have to link to a link, it does not flow well.
I think the website is 100% better than when I came in 2000. However, lack of support for department websites makes most departments way outdated/ugly/bad. We need more work on the department level (consultants and work study students allocated, even a few hours a week, to individual departments) b/c let’s face it, faculty are lazy AND usually technologically illiterate! We need the help. And that’s coming from someone who did learn the “new” CMS 4 years or so ago and has since done virtually nothing to her site and it lanquishes in shame. I just can’t keep up with it but I WANT it to be good!
I think training will be a huge aspect to this undertaking! I think one place we should be sure to teach people as they create pages is how to make sure the appropriate things are coming up in the seach engines.
If you’re going to have pictures on the home page, don’t make them look like they’re straight off of the “red box” campaign, make it look like what campus is really like.
maybe a FAQ area for questions about tuition and important dates
The EWU website seems very clunky and poorly organized to me, even after a school year of trying to use it. I did my undergrad at a larger university where almost anything could be quickly found on their website. I miss those days. Please please please stop with the xNUMBER urls!! Use something that makes sense and is memorable, such as ewu.edu/finaid, ewu.edu/athletics, ewu.edu/departmentname. Also, fix the annoying habit of sidebar links to be different when you click on one- ie, Financial aid website has a sidebar with Financial Aid Eligibility. If you click on that, the page now has a different sidebar of links, including one with the same title of the page you are already on. Pages with sidebars also have the “Other links” section and sometimes links on the main part of the page- too many links! ORGANIZE
the pics of people on campus are lame and fake, just take some pictures of real events on campus and people. The photo shoot pics are obvious and just nerdy.
Whew! After that, I’d say we have our work cut out for us! My personal favorite?
Don’t clutter it, but don’t leave anything out! Good luck!
Thanks! We’ll try our best! 
