Mark Greenfield

I have been blogging for several years and the post that received the most attention by far was
Will Higher Ed Websites Become Irrelevant?. I’ve talked about this at recent conferences by sharing the following observation:  In 2005, 100% of my time was spent working on sites within the buffalo.edu domain. Here in the summer of 2008, I spend about 70% of my time working on sites in the buffalo.edu domain.  The remaining time is spent developing our presence on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Ning, etc., time that is well spent.

Jeremiah Owyang’s recent post The Future of the Corporate Website involves People continues to explore the future of corporate web sites. I particularly like the idea of “fluidity”:

“Corporate websites of the future will be less about canned content and more about fluidity. Meaning, the consumer will demand websites that are connected to the ‘users’ and ‘consumers’ personal networks which will promote and instill word of mouth as a best practice for business development and ultimately sales. The infrastructure will be designed in a way that company developed case studies, webinars and such will be replaced by real consumers leaving messages and user created video’s. …”

To stay relevant, higher ed websites will need to focus on authenticity, transparency, and a willingness to cede control to fully leverage the power of social media. And the time has come to think outside the proverbial box. It is no longer about your web site. Instead, it is about your web presence. Information and commentary on your school is no longer confined to your site, but instead lives in numerous places including Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and countless individual blogs.

In addition to the three presentations I did at the Innovative Educators conference last week, I did a session critiquing several sites volunteered by attendees. While these reviews focused on all aspects of what goes into a great site, usability was what everyone was most interested in.

It amazes me that many higher ed sites continue to have serious usability issues. For example, one site we reviewed prevented someone using Firefox from completing the admissions application. Opening the “Apply Now” link resulted in an error message saying “WARNING! Unsupported Browser!” I also shared an example from my school where the housing request form was recently made available online. Here is some of the text from the instructions:

System Requirements :
You MUST ONLY use IE v 6.0+. You cannot use a Mac. Incompatible browsers may prevent some pages from being displayed. Do not use Firefox.

I guess we don’t want any Mac users or Firefox users living on campus!

I wish these were isolated cases, but the majority of higher ed sites I visit have usability issues. So my questions for the group is why does higher ed continue to struggle with usability? I have my own thoughts, but I would love to hear yours.

I’ve just returned from my annual visit to Happy Valley and the Web 2008: A Conference for Penn State Web Professionals. I was honored that at the closing town meeting I was granted unofficial membership into the Penn State community, complete with my own Penn State football jersey. As always, the conference was a great experience with wonderful hospitality, great sessions, and knowledgeable and engaging attendees.

Steve Krug was the keynote speaker and provided great insight to the many challenges in being a higher education web professional. Here are his “10 Reasons Why It S*cks to be You”

10. Corporate expectations on a not-for profit budget
9. Stakeholders who can be petty and whiny
8. CMS and herding kittens
7. Subsite/Fiefdom hell
6. Multiple audiences with different needs
5. Many disparate databases
4. Home page death match
3. Tons of dynamic content
2. Cool factor arms race to stay competitive
1. Consensus decision making

In addition to the Town Meeting, I gave two presentations (”The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Web Teams” and “It’s the End of the Web as We Know It Redux”), along with a 4 hour tutorial titled “The Long Tail of Social Networks - Building Successful Niche Social Networks.” We had a great conversation around the uwebd social network and I learned a lot about how people are using the site and how it can be improved.

All in all, it was a great two days. Hopefully I will be invited back again next year. The next stop for me is Cincinnati, Ohio for the Increasing Enrollment and Retention via Technology: Blending High Tech and High Touch conference on June 18-20.. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you there.