Web. Orange you glad we’re doing a refresh?

One thing that has come up on this blog, are people’s feelings about the search engine. This reminded me of an incident I encountered recently, that I thought I would relate here.

A user contacted College Relations about their site, which wasn’t showing up in the search results. “Surely,” thought the user, “the search engine must be broken, right?”. I can understand this line of thinking, if only because I think the same thing sometimes. Search, as a tool, has gotten so much better, and become so pervasive to our computing lives (like Mark’s example in his linked comment, above), that when it doesn’t work, one assumes the fault lies in the search engine.

This is not always the case.

A search engine is only as good as the content that feeds it. Oh sure, there can be poor search engines. In fact, there have been several search engines at Buffalo State, with the first (circa 2001-2002) being particularly unhelpful. Now, however, we use the Google Mini. This follows the same search methods as Google—you know, http://www.google.com/. So where was the user’s site?

As I said, it’s about content. Part of the content is having people link to your site. The user’s site didn’t show up, because there were no links to it anywhere on the Buffalo State Web site. If there are no links to your Web site, then the search engine isn’t going to be able to find it. Thus, no search results for your site. Links are a Web site’s word-of-mouth, and without it, a search—like a store or restaurant—is going to fail.

Luckily, it’s easy to check who’s linking to your site by using the search engine. As I said, it’s a Google product, so the tips in Google’s Cheat Sheet apply to our search as well. To see who’s linking to your site, try adding link: ahead of your site, ex. link:www.buffalostate.edu/collegerelations. This shows me everywhere on our Web site that links to the College Relations index page.

There are other things that affect search rankings. Making sure your site is found, however, is an easy first step. The moral of this story? Next time you can’t find something, consider this: it may not exist in the first place.

As part of the refresh, we are adding some exciting new features to our search results. I hope to write more about those soon. In the meantime, do you have any search issues you’d like to share? If so, comment below.

Posted by Paul Kruczynski at 01:10 PM | 1 Comments

“Presto chango!” What an expression, what a concept. Too bad reality doesn’t allow for radical change with the mere utterance of a phrase or pressing of an “easy button.” Still, sometimes transformations do happen quickly with dramatic results.

Case in point, the comps/initial drafts of the new academic sub pages we’ve designed.

You’ve been patient, dear reader, and absorbed our posts on the philosophy, research, and challenges that have informed our upcoming redesign. Now we have some examples for you to see and are eager to read your feedback.

Here’s an example of a section page from our current site:

Now with a wave of the wand, and months of design brainstorming, discussions, and creation, watch as we pull a rabbit out of our collective sleeves to reveal the initial designs of our new section page and sub page.

Oh, what the heck? “PRESTO CHANGO!”

Section page

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Sub page

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Pretty dramatic, huh? As always we’ve kept an eye for clean, accessible, and efficient designs that are standards-compliant. However, we’re also looking to draw the visitor into a page that presents needed information clearly while highlighting some of the Web 2.0 content features (podcasts, blogs, etc.) contained in the site.

Now, onto the fun stuff (and a caveat*)

Section page
This new section page contains all of the useful features you’re accustomed to, but allows for the page navigation to be contained neatly on the left while giving prominent real estate to highlighting academic programs, events, announcements, and more on the right. The images in the large photo box on the right represent flash pieces that will rotate automatically or may be navigated through.

Without sounding too abstract, I’ve come to think of the section page as containing the “guts and the glory” of our new vision. On the left, visitors will be presented with the “guts” of the section: usable, searchable, functional content. On the right, the “glory” is represented by sites, sounds, and stories of Buffalo State. Those unique and compelling people, places, and things that make Buffalo State tick. I think there’s plenty of overlap in both sections, but enough focus to keep both succinct.

Sub page
The sub page currently has a fairly bare bones design. There’s a lot of whitespace in that right hand column, but we’re looking to fill it with needed, useful content. In the particular case, the main content area of this sub page highlights the various schools at Buffalo State. It is very likely that these highlights would contain links to the photo gallery, podcasts, blogs, and more.

Of course, I know what I think, but am eager to hear your thoughts on these new pages. Please take a look at these comps and let us know what you think.

*A Caveat
We’ve intentionally left out the real/current content out of this comp in order to focus on design. Fear not, this is intentional. Hence, the “Navigation” headings and “lorem ipsum” text will be replaced well in advance of the launch of these pages!

These comps represent a look, or a feel, if you will-not necessarily the final design. As we work with our content and move onto other pages and page types being redesigned, there’ll be some tweaks, changes, and “Aha!” moments. The Web is like a plant, a living, breathing thing, and we’re always on the look-out for ways to make it grow.

Posted by Mark Norris at 11:25 AM | 5 Comments