Design and Navigation: A Survey of Australian University Homepages

Karey Patterson, School of Social and Workplace Development, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia, 2480. Email: kpatte10@scu.edu.au

Allan Ellis,School of Social and Workplace Development, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia, 2480. Email:aellis@scu.edu.au

Keywords

University, Online Study, Usability, Web Site features, Design, Australian Higher Education.

Abstract

Australian universities were among the first developers of networked technologies and have historically resourced and supported use of networked distributed information systems such as the Internet and World Wide Web (Patterson, Ellis and Brice, 2000). They were active in attempting to exploit the marketing and course delivery applications made possible since the mass uptake in usage that occurred in the mid 1990’s.

With a large amount of information to convey and an increasingly competitive educational marketplace, for on campus as well as distance education and online educational markets, the importance of good Web design and navigation of a universities Web site cannot and should not be underestimated. Much of the hype surrounding educational Web sites and the possibilities or promise of this new technology has to do with potential access to new markets.

Australian university Web sites (N=42) were rated on 16 characteristics that aimed to provide a comprehensive picture of their navigational structure and their use of various Web technologies and design approaches. An analysis of the survey results illustrates a diversity of design approaches and Web navigation structures are being used and these provide a measure of the quality of sites being built by educational developers. Individual sites provide useful ideas, and approaches for anyone studying Web-based communication.

The majority of Australian University homepages lack basic site characteristics such as a privacy statement particularly in relation to the use of cookies and help pages, and consistency of navigation. These deficiencies impede the ability of a user to find information, navigate throughout the site easily and gain a consistent impression of the implied status of the site. In addition to this 78% of the sites that used cookies did not have a privacy statement that they could offer to users as an assurance that any user data collected would be kept confidential. Use and display of international phone contacts and information in language(s) other than English has been to a large degree ignored in spite of the fact that, in recent years, due to funding cutbacks, foreign student enrollments have been seen as a priority for many universities.