blog #3

This week’s blog assignment is a bit of a change of pace from what our other blog assignments have been. This week we were instructed to find two different university’s websites that deal with our major or professional career paths. I have taken a slightly different approach to this assignment and have decided to apply it to my current situation. I am in the process of finding a university that offers a masters program in Criminal Justice. The two universities I have chosen to analyze are those of Loyola University in New Orleans (http://css.loyno.edu/criminaljustice/master-of-criminal-justice) and Southern Miss (http://www.usm.edu/cj). The reason I chose these two schools is because of the stark differences in website designs and also because they are both in my top 5 choices of schools.
Loyola’s criminal justice masters website caught my eye because it gives really all the initial information a prospective students needs to know to want to learn more. What I mean by this is that it tells the reader why the criminal justice career path is the one to choose. Right beneath that paragraph is a break down of the 30 credit hours that are needed to earn a masters from Loyola. There is also a menu along the left side that is asteticly pleasing and also has links to other parts of the website that a prospective student would want to know. One of the things that I found Loyola’s website to be lacking was accurate information on admissions requirements. One of the phrases that they say when talking about the GRE is that they want the applicant to have a “satisfactory score”. I found this to be very open and not give the student a concrete goal to shoot for.
Southern Miss’s website I found to be very disappointing. There was very little time or thought put into the website design and the information put onto it. The original website has links to different parts of the website that allows the interested student to eventually find out the information he/she is interested in. I find that the initial website has very little actual information on it and does nothing to draw in the reader.
There are some overall objectives that must be completed when a person puts together a website. I am going to take some of the questions provided by the Defining Objectives worksheet provided and answer as if I were designing the perfect website.
What outcome do you desire? The purpose of these websites is to draw in an interested student to dig deeper into the website. The overall goal is to persuade eligible students to join that institution’s program.
Who is your primary reader? The primary reader of this website will be prospective students. Many of these students could be “non-traditional” students meaning they are coming back to school to further their education. This needs to be taken into account so that there is enough information for even the most displaced applicant to understand.
What expectations, regulations, or other factors limit the way you can write? I believe that people that design websites used to universities are virtually handcuffed by a set of policies and the need to be politically correct. I also expect that individual programs are not allowed to take creative license to reflect their unique differences.
I believe that the ideal website is one that strikes a perfect balance between information given and creativeness. I believe that the ideal website must have the number of hours, tuition costs, application requirements, and a description as to why that school is better than the thousands of others out there. I believe that a prospective student shouldn’t have to spend hours clicking away on a schools website just to find out information. I believe all information should be just one click away. The website should have a central theme that is catchy and flows with the information. I believe that if all this is followed then the website will be a huge success.