University of Texas as Austin

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

 

LIS 385T: Information Architecture and Design

Instructor: Dr. Turnbull

 

Design Critique Paper: GSLIS Homepage

By Roger, Chia-hung Wei

Email Address: rogerwei@mail.utexas.edu

 

Assignment Due: October 29, 2002

Figure 1: “Before” screenshot of the GSLIS homepage.

 

The GSLIS(Graduate School of Library and Information Science) homepage contains three theme graphics, two rows of navigation bars located at the right and the bottom, news and events, information for specific groups of people, and the department’s contact information. 

 

There are some design problems that need improvements: 1) the loading speed of the GSLIS homepage is too slow; 2) the placement of the navigation bar is uncommon; 3) the homepage does not include a search box for visitors, although it includes a link to a search engine; 4) the contact information is not important enough to be included on the GSLIS homepage; 5) the GSLIS homepage can provide more information for users.  The following sections will discuss these problems and offer suggestions for improvement.

 

1) The loading speed of the GSLIS homepage is too slow: With regard to the graphic design of a homepage, Farkas & Farkas (2002) provides three main goals:  adding aesthetic appeal, expressing the theme, and showing the logical relationships.  Although the GSLIS homepage meets the goals of aesthetic appeal and the theme of the website, the design style causes another big problem - as users visit the GSLIS homepage, most users may need patience with the slow loading speed.  Slow web sites are frustrating to use (Van Duyne, 2002).  

 

Figure 2: “After” screenshot of the GSLIS homepage.

 

The main causes for the slow loading speed at the GSLIS homepage are three large JPEG graphics that have a total size of 225 KB.  Webpage designers often ignore that most web users are still using slow, analog modems.  The main visitors of the GSLIS website are faculty, current students, and prospective students from all over the world.  They will often access the website through telephone lines when the server is slow.

 

Improvement: Since graphics are often the slowest-loading part of a web page, reducing the size of an image can have a significant impact on how visitors perceive the web site (Van Duyne, 2002).  Designers have to balance the goals of graphics design and loading speed.  The web designer can shrink the size of the graphics and apply a proper compression ratio to reduce the file size of the graphics.  The application of these techniques can easily speed up the loading of the homepage and also meet the goals of graphics design.

 

2) The placement of the navigational bar is uncommon: it is fairly rare to see a navigation bar on the right, even on site designs for languages that read from right to left (Van Duyne, 2002). Clearly, the designer of the GSLIS homepage did not abide by the traditional design style.  The two navigation bars are placed at the right and bottom of the homepage, respectively.  The un-prevalent navigation design will challenge most users’ habits, forcing them to spend more time adjusting to the design style. 

 

Improvement: The designer has designed the global navigation bar (including “ABOUT GSLIS”, “ACADEMIC PROGRAMS”, “ADMISSIONS”, “COURSES”, “PEOPLE & GROUPS”, “RESEARCH & PUBLICATIONS”, “COMPUTING RESOURCES”, and “CAREER SERVICES”)  at the top of all the webpages  except the homepage.  It is more convenient for visitors to use a consistent global navigation bar throughout the whole website.  In addition, the second group of links (including UT home, UT Library Online, Contact Info, and Site Map) will be placed at the bottom left of the homepage.  This will make the homepage consistent with the other pages.  “Search” will add a search box, which will be discussed at another problem section.  “Privacy Info” will be located on the bottom left of the page because few visitors will look for the information. 

 

Furthermore, the local navigation bar including “Prospective Students,” “Current Students”, “Faculty & Staff,” and “Alumni” will be moved from the bottom of the homepage to the left.

 

3) The homepage does not place a search box for visitors, although a link is included: When entering the GSLIS website, some visitors know exactly what they are looking for (e.g. Application deadline for PhD program).  The visitors may want to quickly jump from the homepage to the destination page by the site search engine.

 

When visitors enter the GSLIS homepage, they cannot find a search box and a “search” button that would appear if the web site offered a search engine. Actually, the GSLIS site does provide a search tool for visitors.  However, the “search” is a link located at the bottom of the homepage.  It takes visitors to a page that includes a search box with various search databases.  

 

Improvement: a quick and simple search function on the homepage is critical to win the visitors’ confidence (Van Duyne, 2002).  As the GSLIS website becomes more complex or increasing documents are added, a search engine will become an important tool for visitors to find their information in a short time.  The placement for a search box is usually at the top of the homepage. Visitors can easily see the search box without scrolling down.     

 

4) The contact information is not important enough to place on the GSLIS homepage: Some web sites (e.g. restaurants and supermarkets) are used for the means of advertisement.  One of the major purposes is to make their customers know their addresses and telephone numbers.  Such information will be placed at the homepages of their web sites.  However, it is not necessary to place the address, phone number, and fax number at the GSLIS homepage.  

 

Improvement:  Most visitors know they can find this kind of information by clicking “Contact” or “Contact Us” buttons.  Since we will provide a “Contact Info” link at the global navigation bar, the space will be used for placing information that is more meaningful.

 

5) The GSLIS homepage can provide more information for users: Currently, “news and events” of the homepage is not frequently updated so that the homepage is not well made use of.  Current students may set other more useful pages (e.g. “courses” page, or “people & group” page)  rather than the GSLIS homepage as their the favorite page on their browser.  This is because the GSLIS homepage does not offer visitors important information. Moreover, as global navigation bar appears at almost all GSLIS web pages, the navigation bar of the homepage becomes less important for users to assess other web pages. 

Improvement: the GSLIS homepage can serve as a news station to periodically announce the latest news and important events for faculty, and current students.  We will place the news in the middle of the GSLIS homepage so that visitors can easily see the latest news and events.  At the same time, the GSLIS department can announce and notify information for faculty and current students through the homepage.

 

Because it is the first page of a website, the homepage is usually stressed on aesthetic appeal.  The above sections allow us to realize that a designer still has to consider the design principles for a homepage.  A well-designed homepage can provide information that is more meaningful for people. 

 

Reference