Concern 2: Ah, the AutoComplete. Internet Explorer
wants to help us at every turn. In the case of a search
engine, it sometimes plays hide and go seek. The button
I click to search is underneath the text box where I
enter information. When I put in a term, often the
AutoComplete menu hides the search button. Like so:
Suggestion: Yes, I know its a little thing and as soon
as I choose the element I want, the search button will
reappear, but look at the major search engines. Yahoo,
Webcrawler, AltaVista, and Lycos all have the button off
to the left. Google has the button underneath, but they
have also turned off the AutoComplete. Do one or the other.
Concern 3: Why do you offer a different design on every
one of your sub-pages? Here are two:
I see the first carries some of the elements, but the second,
and others, dont come close. That can be confusing to your
users. They wont have any reinforcement that they are within
the same site.
Suggestion: Pick a format and stick with it. Yes, I see you
use off site help with email and the like, but stay with the
same format. That may mean coding so that you call for off-
site elements to display within your design. I know you can
do that. You do it on the homepage.
Concern 4: Speaking of off-site elements. You have the
ability to get free email. Why? Your sites killer app is
to be a search engine. Where does free email fit into that
picture?
Suggestion: Maybe I am missing the reason for the free
email offering. If there is a solid reason, then keep it.
If not, lose it. It doesnt help the killer app and it seems
to not quite fit with the rest of the site.
Concern 5: I am going to harp one more time on the homepage
text. The second question that popped into my mind after why
I would come here over Yahoo was, What does LRC stand for?
It isnt until the second paragraph that you explain it. Even
then it doesnt have any extra emphasis.
Suggestion: I would change out that text and get the name of
the page up high and when I wrote out Learning Resource
Center, I would cap and bold the first letter to denote it
was the full text equal to LRC.
Overall: I really liked the site and spent some time searching
around. I think it will be helpful to students who dont want
to get bogged down in unwarranted hits. Students are doing
more and more research on the Web. Too often that research
is riddled with sites from sites that have no business being
in a research paper. This site is a step in the right direction
to helping students research correctly and accurately using the
Web.
Well done, Michael.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s that.
Joe Burns, Ph.D.
Always Remember: When it comes to designing your Web site, the
most important person is not you, but your user.
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