Web Content in higher education: do you have a personal pet peeve?
Spent time last week answering 6 questions sent by Susan Ragland, a chief editor for LINK: The Journal of Higher Education Web Professionals and Web Content Editor at Tarrant County College for the September issue of LINK.
One of them was impossible to answer:
- “Usability expert Jared Spool has mentioned the
phenomenon of useless “girls under trees” photos on
college/university websites for the past few years. What would you consider
your biggest pet-peeve when it comes to Web content in higher ed?”
Just one “biggest” pet peeve? Here are the 6 candidates that I sent along to Susan:
- Print magazines put online using “flip” technology that can’t be read without zooming text.
- Inquiry forms that ask for high school codes and personal details not needed to respond to a request for information.
- Horrible search engine results, driven by the dead content that litters most websites and turns up in searches.
- Building exterior photos that have no obvious relationship to content on the page.
- “Why study (name of academic program)…” introductions dripping with academic jargon.
- FAQ pages with questions not “frequently” asked at all, including “When were you founded?” and “What is your mission?”
Presentations on Mobile Marketing
- Read and download my workshop session at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference.
- Register for a new September webinar on “Task Completion: the Key to Higher Ed Marketing in the Mobile Environment.”
- Sign up for my tutorial at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education on “Mobile Marketing in Higher Education: Getting Ready for 2012 and Beyond.”
- Join me in Denmark in November at J.Boye Aarhus11 for a tutorial on “Top Task Design: The Key to Integrating Content Strategy for Traditional and Mobile Websites.”
That’s all for now.
- Join me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing
- Subscribe to “Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter” at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/newsletter-subscribe.html
Thank you for the mention. I appreciated your taking the time to answer my questions as well as your candor in answering them. Happy Fall Semester everyone! 🙂