Wow! Thanks for your valuable and honest feedback. This blog received nearly 10,000 views since we posted the designs and over 1,000 of you responded to the poll. Your 500+ comments show that you are truly connected with Carolina.
The comments have been informative and encouraging. Can everyone be pleased? No, but we’re determined to strike the right balance.
Before we touch on main themes, please know that the design is evolving, based in large measure on your comments. The themes that emerged from comments included:
Color: Some of you like a dark background and some don’t. As far as how background color impacts readability, Web standards show that high contrast is of utmost importance. We will continue to test and evaluate this.
Branding: Some of you mentioned highlighting Carolina Blue and making the University’s logo bigger and more prominent. We hear you.
Libraries: Placing the Libraries link at the top of the page enables users to quickly access the site from every page in the same way as Directories and Maps. Usability testing showed that people had no problem finding this link. Nevertheless, we’re working to make this more prominent.
Looks like something you’ve seen before: Successful sites have many elements in common. Neither design was pulled off a template rack or copied. Heck, I think the basis for design B is a Mondrian painting or a Mackintosh detail, so that’s high praise in my book.
Sense of place: Some folks think that the large photo in design A gives a sense of place, especially if other photos of Carolina rotate through. This has always been a priority.
Academic life: With the addition of real content – photos and stories about the people exploring, creating and researching – the site will take users deep into Carolina’s meaningful academic life. The design will serve as a starting point for this and the content will ultimately show the substance and heart of Carolina.
Photos: Will images change? Yes. The idea is to frequently interchange photos of our beautiful campus, academic settings such as laboratories and classrooms, and our people to show what life at Carolina is like. Keeping the best user experience in mind, many photos will take users to the stories and people behind them. And, by the way, the photo stream will be moderated.
Thanks again for your feedback. We’ll continue to use the blog to keep you up-to-date on our progress and we welcome your comments at any point.
On behalf of the Web Advisory Committee, Scott.
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I would appreciate it if you would “elevate” the athletics link to have the same “priority” (size, font, color) as the other main links such as “for students”. For many alumni, athletics appears to be he the most frequently visited area of the web site.
Thanks. Mike Robinson
Just a consideration for those of us who use the iphone, Stanford University has an “iStanford” home page for the iphone. It’s great, easy and fast! Can you possible create an iCarolina or iUNC?
Thanks,
Terri
I think the most important consideration is accessibility. Thanks for high contrast.
I cannot read the light blue font against the white background without a struggle. More contrast helps.
my biggest compliant about the new website is the schedule of events for the different sports
in the past if you clicked on a sport and then clicked on schedule you got the schedule for that particular sport
now….
even if you go to a sport and click on schedule you get the schedule for ALL of the sports AND THEN you have to look/search/dig for the original sport you wanted!
PLEASE
PLEASE
PLEASE
go back to the old way and make life simpler and more efficient
Gracias Danke Merci
Sincerely
Great that you’re redesigning. I too use an iPhone and recently discovered the excellent UNC Mobile site at m.unc.edu. Few people seem to know about it because it’s gotten little advertising. No better place to put a “UNC Mobile” badge than on the main UNC page. Howzaboutit? Thanks.
Thanks for that suggestion, Mark. Traffic to m.unc.edu shows that lots of folks are using it. The development team is working on ways to make m.unc.edu more useful.