Staying in Touch

We know staying in touch through the internet has become a part of our everyday lives. Social networking sites have become main stream. As we move forward in redesigning our web site, we recognize the importance of these things.

Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube will be incorporated in the new web site. What are your ideas of how you would like to see Hawkeye use these?

How do you find information on the web?

Steve Krug in Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability writes about how we really use the web.

"We don’t read web pages. We scan them."

When we go to the web we are on a mission, we need to complete a task, and we want to find the information to complete this task as quickly as possible. Usually we are in a hurry or just don't want to spend a lot of time to find a simple answer. So we skim and scan web pages 1) to figure out if we are on the right page and 2) to find the information we came looking for. Most of the time we don't need to read all the information presented to complete our task.

"We don’t make optimal choices. We satisfice."

When we are navigating a web site, we don't scour every page looking for the perfect link to get us to the information we are looking for. We quickly find the first link that looks like it might work and try it out. There's always the back button after all :) It's less work for us to guess than it is to look over all our options and decide on the best one.

"We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through."

How often do you stop to read the instructions before completing a form online or the instructions on a page before clicking on the link to get to where you want to go? SOAR is a good example. Who has read all the instructions on the Student welcome page before clicking "OK" just to find out you were supposed to click "If you have read and understood..."?

We try and figure things out as we go, trial and error, we don't have time to read lengthy instructions and descriptions, and even if we do have the time we still don’t - that would mean I'd have to think :)

As I was reading this book I learned a lot about how I navigate the web. It put words to my everyday actions and has helped me understand how I can build better web sites.

I highly recommend taking the time to read this book. It is short, very informative, and you can check it out from Hawkeye’s Library through interlibrary loan.

Worldly View

During the month of May, more than 32,000 visits were made to the Hawkeye web site. We were visited by people from more than 80 counties and territories from across the world.

Guess what countries had the most visitors:

1. Canada
2. India
3. China
4. Ireland
5. United Kingdom

Did you know the Hawkeye web site is made up of more than 2000 individual web pages?

Top Ten Most Viewed Hawkeye Web Pages

10. Staff & Faculty Directory
9. Distance Learning
8. Contact Us
7. Class Schedules
6. Future Students
5. Library
4. Current Students
3. Programs Offered
2. My Hawkeye
1. Student Log-ins/Email

Putting your suggestions into action

As we are working on the new Hawkeye web site we continue to try and improve the current web site.

Maybe you have noticed a slightly different look on the home page? We've replace the "fly-in buttons" with stationary links that are quick and easy to use. We've also added buttons to our calendar of events, Hawkeye news, and Hawkeye's Facebook page.

Programs Offered also has a different look. We've reorganized the list of programs into department categories and added breadcrumb navigation to each of the program pages to help you 1) know where you are on the web site and 2) get back to where you came from if you need to. Future plans for this section include: updating the pictures to program specific pictures, creating program photo galleries in Flickr, and linking the courses on the Suggested Plan of Study page to the course description. We'd love to hear any ideas you have to improve this very important section of the web site. Please contact us at webmaster@hawkeyecollege.edu or post a comment below.

Additionally, based on survey comments, we've been working on a few small things that we hope will make a big difference:

• increased the font-size of the sub navigation.
• added maps and directions to the locations page using Google maps.
• created a Flickr gallery of new pictures of some of Hawkeye's programs. While we have many more programs to go, this is at least a start.

As we move forward with the redesign, please don't be shy - let us know your ideas of what you'd like to see on the web site. You can email us at webmaster@hawkeyecollege.edu or post a comment below.

Survey Says ...

Thank you to all of you who have completed our website survey. We will use the results to help guide us as we move forward redesigning www.hawkeyecollege.edu. Yes, you read right. We are overhauling the college website. With your input throughout this process we hope to better serve your needs when you visit our website.

When reading through the comments, we found three reoccurring themes:

• you guessed it - we need a search button
• the site is difficult to navigate
  
• the design needs to be updated

We hear you and are working to be sure these problems are fixed with the new site. Actually, we are currently in the process of drafting a new site map to address the problem of poor navigation. Through your feedback, user testing, and current best practices research, we will develop a navigation scheme that makes it easier for you to get the information you need.

Please check back often and let us know what you think of the progress and offer any comments or suggestions.