University and college websites are very important for showcasing the overall view of the institution, along with providing all the necessary information.
The designing of college website will be quite different from the regular business websites. There are wide ranges of website design options available, which can be used to maintain and enhance your college website.
Some of the institutes give their web designing projects to those companies which do not have any prior experiences of creating such websites. The end result will simply not meet up to the expectations of the audience, be it students, faculty and employees, alumni members, administration, stake holders, etc.
Common Flaws in a College/University Website
- One of the most common flaws that you see in college websites, is the confusing web navigation. With all due respect to the budding talents, the students might not have the insights to create website for their institution. You will need the experts for the job. The site must be smooth and user friendly. If you have to do a lot of clicks to reach the necessary information, then the users will certainly get frustrated.
- Missing or incorrect information – It is one of the common flaws that you can see in many college websites. A college website needs to be informative to all the audience, including the new aspirants planning to enroll there. If the sure doesn’t provide proper knowledge base, then it is of no use.
- If the site is full of irrelevant data, which is not beneficial to users, then the website is bound to fail.
- Your website must not be boring. However, it still need to maintain the standards of professionalism that is expected. Many institute websites do cross those lines in one way or the other.
Things to discuss with your website designer
The page composition of any website is very important. New designing extensions and widgets are available, using which you can easily divide the sections in your website, which will in turn make it more readable.
If the contents are not sorted out properly, then the readers will find it really tough to find the information they are looking for. You can segregate the information into sections like information about the college, admissions, results, news, events, etc.
Photo slideshow and representation through graphics is the most efficient way to present your website. Providing pictures of the college or university will help the viewers get a glimpse of the institution and student environment there. As photos and video illustrations help people understand things faster and better, you can use multimedia. However, the balance should be maintained, because heavy files will slow down the loading of pages.
It is also very important to choose good fonts for the contents of your website. Also, you should maintain the uniformity across all the pages. The designer you choose should make accommodations to make your contents more readable and well-composed.
Try not to accumulate all the information on a single page. Instead, choose a layout that distributes your contents smartly, so that they are easier to refer or access.
Also the website should be responsive to smaller screen sizes of tablets and smartphones. Also you need to integrate your institution website with some of the best social media networking websites like Twitter, Instagram, FaceBook etc.
There are many attractive and amazing layouts that you can choose from, to compose your website. You can then find one of the top affordable web hosting service, to put your website online.
Website of your college or university is going to be a virtual representation of your institution. It shouldn’t contain any false content and it shouldn’t be ill-designed. The key to your website success is proper design, easy navigation, correct information, and regular updating.
Some of the college and university websites that impressed us are:
http://virtualtour.gwu.edu/#!UMAP_2013090592962
http://www.regent-college.edu/
http://langara.ca/
https://www.brown.edu/
