Your Higher Education Marketing Link of the Week… Xavier University: Academic Programs Display… 22 July 2022

Artfully Displayed Academic Programs at Xavier University

Xavier UniversityXavier UniversityReviewing academic programs available is a priority top task for potential students. Few do that as well as Xavier University.

Visitors to the “Academics” page can easily scan the academic programs available in 4 academic divisions as the page opens, each with a short description:

  • College of Arts and Sciences
  • College of Nursing
  • College of Professional Sciences
  • Williams College of Business

Undergraduate programs display first but people interested in graduate programs can easily change the display by selecting the “Graduate” link under the easy-to-see (on a large screen computer) heading at the top of the right column.

Another strong feature: 14 study areas listed under “Fields of Study” let visitors identify related programs in different colleges. Checking “Communication,” for instance, brings up 8 programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and one in the Williams College of Business. Potential students, after all, will not know where a university has binned related programs that might interest them.

These navigation points work better on a desktop or laptop computer where the options are immediately visible than on the narrow view of a mobile device.

After a search for “Xavier University”…

Xavier UniversityPotential students who search for Xavier online will see in both an opening ad and in the organic search result a prominent link to “Academic Programs” that lets them move immediately to top task completion on the “Academics” page. We suspect that a fair number of people will take that path rather than start at the home page.

Potential students who do start at the home page have to scroll to a mid-point on the page to discover what programs are available. A path to “Academics” is available from a “Majors” heading included in the 2nd row of 6 “Featured Links.”

Note that the opening home page image includes a bouncing downward arrow. We presume that’s to make sure visitors indeed scroll down to see what’s next on the page rather than immediately following the prominent opening links to “Virtual Tour” and “Schedule a Visit” or  bouncing from the page if neither of the opening links are of interest. That’s always seemed an odd navigation element since first seeing it at Fordham University many years ago.

Speed on mobile… an excellent start time

Google PageSpeed Insights measures the time to first view on a mobile phone at an excellent 1.7 seconds. Time to full interactivity is not quite as good at 8.0 seconds.

The main change for a faster download speed: “Reduce unused JavaScript.”

Website Carbon Calculator… a rare “Hurrah!”

Thanks to Gerry McGovern and his efforts to reduce “world wide waste” for the referral.

“This web page is cleaner than 60% of web pages tested.”

See how your website helps or hurts  the climate. Test your website pages at “Website Carbon Calculator.”

Follow the Link(s) of the Week…

See how Xavier University artfully displays available academic programs when you visit the “Academics” page.

Recommend a future Link of the Week

Always eager to get recommendations of websites that dare to be different… or just do something ordinary in a special way. Write a comment with link here or send me the link at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com.

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