I launched the new college web site tonight (FINALLY!), after a whole day porting some scripts from Perl to PHP because the campus web server wouldn't run the Perl scripts. But that's another story.

This new site is what's been stressing me and occupying most every hour at work (and even some at home) for the past couple months.



All the comments from other people, while it was in draft form, were most promising. They liked what they saw, mostly because I put about 100% of my efforts into usability and navigation. Information is no good if people cannot find it easily.

I have a different web-design philosophy than most people. The standard attitude is "get people to the site and keep them there," which can sometimes mean deliberately making it hard for them to leave a site.

Mine is "get people there and get them out as soon as possible." That is, I want them to find the site so easy to use that they get what they came for, then get on with their lives, yet remember us for being so easy to use so they come back and tell friends to check us out. Not because we're cool, but because we're friendly.



Now, I expect, I will get to hear from people who didn't bother to check out the new site while it was in development. I know the new site can use a little more pizzazz, but it's SO much better than the old one that a tiny step back in aesthetics will be steamrolled by the improved usability. We can always add wrapping paper later.



Almost forgot...

Tseng College of Extended Learning