The Storyboard: Comments

Comment on "Iteration 2"

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 02:51:23 -0500

Actually I'll reiterate on the scrolling images - It's too much movement.

Comment on "Drupal for CMS"

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:37:34 -0500

Well i have never used Drupal as a CMS. I have tried it not on website but on my local server. Developing with may be a good idea for matrimonial websites or community websites. Thanks for recommending drupal.

- Navneet

Comment on "Drupal for CMS"

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:41:51 -0500

Thinking forward is the best idea, Drupal can scale well.

- Josh

Comment on "Drupal for CMS"

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 22:26:32 -0500

Would it be possible to see a list of the other CMS solutions you considered?

Thx

- Bill Trevor

Comment on "On Content"

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:49:10 -0500

Nice thoughts and ideas for your site. Also I have a few to offer you:
- use tags and categories in sidebar and footer of every site blogpost;
- nice and classical solution is using tag carousel (pretty old but...)
- and don't forget about interlinking between useful and relevant articles inside your site. It will improve overall site usability and content accessibility

Good luck!

- Andrew Borman

Comment on "We'd Love Your Input"

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 11:20:25 -0500

Thank you for your feedback Aaron. We are working our way through an iterative approach to redesign the psu.edu homepage. The current iteration of the homepage is not our final destination, but part of our journey. This is our way of using research and analytics to inform the changes we make not only to the iterative designs, but to inform the Grand Relaunch as well. We have also done extensive benchmarking with other institutions in the Big Ten Conference, as well as with aspirational peers.

There is so much talent at Penn State, and we have been able to leverage this talent through all the volunteers working together on the Polaris project. We have technologists, analysts, designers, developers, information architects, wireframe designers, experts in server infrastructure, researchers, writers, and more! This project was built from the ground up by hours of volunteer time.

We hope that you will stay tuned, and continue to offer feedback as we continue this journey.

- Clair M Poletti

Comment on "Measuring the Success of the Redesign"

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:28:35 -0500

Thanks so much for the comment, Gisele. It's great to hear others talk about the value of web analytics at their school.

You are absolutely right about context. It's all in the presentation. Show the insights, not just a bunch of numbers.

We will hopefully be sharing more on the topic of measurement in the weeks and months to come, so check back.

Thanks again and good luck with analytics at your school. It sounds like people are starting to see the value which is great.

Shelby

- Shelby Thayer

Comment on "We'd Love Your Input"

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:27:09 -0500

I still think the homepage has a long way to go. My personal opinion is that an institution like Penn State should hand this project over to a professional design team.

The homepage is the face of the university and the design should reflect its prestige. The current design looks like a community college website.

If hiring this project out is not an option, I would highly recommend at least seeking outside opinion from professionals. This is very inexpensive to do.

The same site that listed the best and worst university website designs has a consulting service that is very affordable and would be worth every penny in my opinion.

http://designshack.net/advice

- Aaron

Comment on "Measuring the Success of the Redesign"

Mon, 28 May 2012 12:35:43 -0500

Hi Shelby,
I loved your update on Web Analytics and how you talked about establishing goals. For the past two years I've been tracking the analytics for a University here in So cal, but I'm had a hard time convincing others that reporting numbers for the sake of reporting numbers is useless. If data mining isn't used to drive critical decisions, what's the point?

I think when people are presented with analytics out of context...just numbers...yes, the room clears. But when you start to show them what the numbers mean, they get excited. So now, I'm getting inundated with requests for metrics...what's trending? what are the top news stories? why isn't anyone downloading this PDF?

As always, I'm so proud of my alma mater. Keep up the great work you're doing on the website. And, please continue to share how analytics influences design and content.

Gisele '85

- Gisele Kirtley '85

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Fri, 18 May 2012 03:08:14 -0500

In my opinion, the site is simple and easy to use. It's a question of taste. I like simple design.
I would just increase the line height so it gets more readable.
For any font size, the line height must increase as the line width increases. What about another font ? Georgia ?

Regards,

Antoine

- Antoine

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Thu, 03 May 2012 09:54:24 -0500

Sorry Chris, but I do not agree... There is no problem with the page at all - in my opinion. It is clear, simply, easy to use and we are not lost in the jungle of information like on the other page (admissions.psu.edu) you've mentioned. Anyway this is only the matter of taste, isn't it... :)Peace.. Robert

- Robert

Comment on "Polaris Informational Sessions"

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:59:10 -0500

Last month, when i visited your blog i got an error on the mysql server of yours. ~,” 165051

- URL

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:43:46 -0500

Aaron,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We have Content and Creative Teams working hard to refocus and redesign psu.edu. The iterative changes you are seeing to the site are for the purpose of addressing immediate necessities. However, later this year, significant changes will be coming. As the site has not been updated in over a decade, there are many things that need to be done concurrently to psu.edu and live.psu.edu, including changes to the infrastructure and the implementation of a content management system. We are confident that everyone will be excited by the larger changes coming down the line.

Sean

- Sean Andrews

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:24:55 -0500

Krystal:

Thank you for your feedback. We'll keep this in mind for a future iteration.

- Giovanna Genard

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:20:27 -0500

The site is absolutely terrible. It is hardly any different than it was before the redesign. It still looks like its a site from 1998. Who is developing this? I'm sure some kids who are in IST or even state college high school kids could make a better site. The site isnt even mobile compatible. When i type it in my iphone I can hardly see anything. admissions.psu.edu is a good looking site. the homepage needs to be more like this.

- Chris

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:10:39 -0500

Why is this not being hired out to a professional design team?

The homepage is terrible. The Polaris team needs to focus more on making the site the visible face of the University and concentrate less on how functional it is to all the groups of people that need to access information.

Information access should be separated into different portals - Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, Parents, Visitors, Recruiters, etc. NOT piled all in one ugly mess of links on the home page!

See the link below for a list of good and bad examples of university websites. Penn State is on there for one of the worst.

http://designshack.net/articles/graphics/best-and-worst-design-50-university-websites-from-50-states

- Aaron

Comment on "Iteration 3"

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:59:46 -0500

The "This is Penn State" link should keep you on the PSU homepage, instead of directing you to YouTube. Perhaps you can create a navigation on the link so open a new window with YouTube? Just a thought, it may help help keep the users on target with why they are on the homepage.

Otherwise it looks great! Loving the new look and feel.

- Krystal

Comment on "On Content"

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:44:35 -0500

If a user enlarges the font on the main web page, the links in the upper right hand corner don't work correctly (you cannot mouseover a link and slide to the right). For example, if I mouseover Faculty and Staff Services, a list of other links to the right appears, but if I try ot slide to that list, it disappears. It does not do this if I use the default font (which is quite small). In addition, the blue-on-blue font/background at the bottom of the page is very hard to read.

- Linda Null

Comment on "On Content"

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:40:54 -0500

Thank you for your comment. We're looking into it and we really appreciate that you pointed it out.

- Sally Heffentreyer

Comment on "On Content"

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:00:39 -0500

just a comment about the "search box" in the upper right corner... anytime the following letters g j p q y in lower case are used in search box ... you can not see the entire letter. this is troublesome for spelling errors and probably for some folks with visual issues. perhaps it can be a default to CAPS? or perhaps the box can be enlarged a bit ?? (I use mostly Firefox 11.0)

- jennifer lee