This time, 20 selected websites of universities, faculties, or fields of study related to logistics were examined. The study was divided into 4 parts.
In the first part, the possibilities for students and other interested parties visiting the website to contact the university were evaluated. All examined websites provided a contact phone number. Unfortunately, not all units provide an e-mail address to which inquiries can be sent. None of the examined websites offer the possibility of making contact by sending a message via a web form.
In the second part of the study, basic issues regarding the functionality of the websites were analyzed. Only one in four sites offers the possibility of using a search engine located on every page of the site. This is important, especially in the case of such extensive websites as those of universities, which contain a large amount of information. This information is often grouped in a difficult-to-understand way, so the lack of a search engine may be surprising. More than half of the examined websites have a menu containing too many items, which hinders navigation and impairs the overall clarity of the site. In case of getting lost on the site, a very helpful tool is a site map, which only one of the examined websites has. This is a tool that helps in understanding the structure of the site and makes it easier to find the place where the user is currently located. Also, only one of the sites uses a different color for visited hyperlinks, as opposed to those that have not yet been visited. This is another difficulty that people browsing university websites have to face.
Only one of the examined websites used a font with relatively defined sizes. Such a font is scalable and allows people with poorer eyesight to enlarge it in the browser window. In the third part, it was checked whether there were any additional obstacles on the sites. In this part of the study, all sites performed exemplarily, obtaining the maximum score. Finally, the compliance of the home pages of the examined universities, faculties, or fields of study with W3C (World Wide Web Consortium –
www.w3.org) standards was examined. Here, every examined site had errors. The number of errors found on individual sites was very often related to the level of complexity of the given site.
What can be improved?
Such studies show some of the problems that people visiting websites have to face. Content overload, information noise, lack of clarity, difficult navigation, lack of consistency, poorly designed information architecture –
these are just some of the most frequently occurring problems. Apart from removing the discussed errors, it is worth taking a step forward towards the user. Changes should start with simplifying contacts between students and the dean’s office. Regular publication of announcements made by the dean’s office on a specially prepared page is the first step that can encourage students to visit the university’s website frequently. This will partially relieve the people working in the dean’s offices from the necessity of answering repetitive questions from students, which will be beneficial for both parties. The websites of some universities provide a list of necessary documents required when submitting specific applications. This saves time for students and staff. Other universities go a step further by publishing templates of letters that should be submitted on their websites, or even placing forms ready to be filled out.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” no. 4/2006.