A Tangled Web.... Warwick's experience

Evenin' all,

An article published in last season's SCONUL Focus describes the University of Warwick's experience of re-modelling their web site.

http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/41/16.pdf

Already some interesting similarites, I particularly like the bullet pointed list at the end of what to do/what not to do !

Feedback part 2

One of the other big things to come out of the meeting was that students wanted more personalisation of services. We discussed the subject pages, and the group felt that much more could be made of those areas. (which we are planning to do with the idea of micro sites, owned by the subject information advisors)

Looking at the Hi web site, group members felt we could 'borrow' the '10 things you wish you'd knew' and adopt it for Learning Services. http://hi.edgehill.ac.uk/latest/10-things-you-wish-you-knew#t-tip-1

Also, it was felt that not enough was made of the online reading lists facility available through the library catalogue. http://library.edgehill.ac.uk/search/g

In short - the group didn't seem to be asking for stuff that was out of reach, it is stuff that we already have, we're just not seeing it from a learner point of view, and not making it as accessible as the students/staff would like!

Feedback from students and staff

We had a small focus group last week of students and staff, only about 7, and it took quite a lot of effort to get that many (posters, appeals in Fastrack sessions, leaflets on helpdesks) and bribery in terms of a £5 lunch voucher!

We began (Mike and I) by showing the current Learning Services web pages at http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/ls and asking for feedback.

The audience had a range of different levels of experience with the site, with some members having only just started studying at Edge Hill, some moving from first to second year, and some staff members from the enquiries unit dealing with student questions about the web pages.

The main criticism of the site was that it had 'too much information' and seemed outdated. One student described it as 'blah' (which I really liked!) Some key points are made on the homepage and can be found here: http://awurl.com/fcdxhg92474

The opening hours page also has some comments: http://awurl.com/lvkjav92534

Next up was a demonstration of the corporate site www.edgehill.ac.uk and the award winning Hi site http://hi.edgehill.ac.uk to see if we could pinch any ideas or good practice to use in our new version.
Some tips to borrow were:

• Virtual tour of bookends (and updated LRC)
  
• Excellent use of imagery (of campus)
• 10 top tips features
• Clean look and feel

The group also felt that features such as Online Chat would be very useful, and that contact information was buried, so that is something that we need to consider.

(There is more, so i plan to finish this later - I got sidetracked by changing some of the really out of date pages on the current site)!