​​​​Rene Zamora​

Design Aspects:

Organization of Content Recommendations

The SGA webpage is currently designed to divide the content thoughtfully, which is a concept in the Redish textbook. As mentioned earlier, there is a right hand column that puts the pathway links on its own section of the website. Next to the pathway links there is space for the main website text to be included. This website alignment/structure is organized very well.

 

The pathway links are in their own section, but they are not organized in a way to move a conversation ahead through related links. To fulfill this concept, the links must be placed in a specific order for the viewer to progress in what the website is trying to tell them. There are certain links that should strategically follow one another because they each share relevant information about a certain part of the organization and lead into each other. I would recommend changing the pathway links to the following order: Home, About, Executive, Legislative, Judicial (with sublinks to Parking Appeal, Library Appeal), Constitution, SGA Meetings, SGA Minutes, Photo Gallery, Elections. This would allow for a certain flow for the viewer to get a better understanding of the organization and then decide to learn about Elections and Apply.

 

See Figure 2 to see how the links are currently placed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Color | Positive Aspects

Of course, color is important to the overall design of a website. According to Redish (2012), a few color concepts to follow are working with brand colors, keeping the background clear, and keep a high contrast. This is something that the current website has done very well. The website uses blue and green text to represent the university colors in its headlines, it is on a simple light blue background, and uses black text which contrasts very well.

 

Headlines Recommendations

Headlines on the SGA website are not done very well – many of the pages that are redirected from the pathway links are repetitive and display the acronym “SGA” in blue with the page title under it in green.

 

See Figure 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To make the headlines more enticing to the viewer and bring questions to their mind, the concept of using statements, questions or calls to action should be used. A change I would recommend doing for the Elections webpage would be to remove the blue “SGA” and include a call to action such as “Become a Member!” and keep the green “Elections” under it.

 

An additional concept to use for headlines is to add a short description if people need it. I recommend adding them to every page that is sent from the pathway links. Please see Figure 4 for an example:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Headings Recommenadtions

Headings go under the headline and allow the viewer/reader to understand what the following body of text will be about. Throughout the SGA website, there are many pages that use headers that are in bold text and also include additional text in bold. This creates confusion for the reader because there is nothing distinguishing what they are going to read. A heading must be easy to see, so using bolding and a color for the text could assist in this. For future reference, Redish (2012) suggests that website editors should avoid italics (the SGA website does not have any), only use underling if it is a link, and avoid using all capitals as it takes up space, people think you are shouting, people’s eyes glaze over them, and people tend to stop reading.

 

Lists Recommendations

An additional design aspect to the SGA website are lists. There are many lists on this site, but the ones that I believe are most important are the ones that list of all the SGA members in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches. The web pages include the members names and emails and the Legislative page includes a sentence that states, “Your SGA senators for 2013- 2014 academic year are:” This indicated that the webpages are trying to introduce the SGA members. I would recommend using headshot photos of the SGA members near their names to act as bullet points because it helps convey the websites message that it is introducing them to the viewer and it give it some personality, which is another concept.

 

There are other lists on the SGA website that are used for other things (not just introducing the members). Some other lists include rules for elections, SGA’s meeting minutes, and the photo gallery. To keep the website consistent, it is important to start lists the same way throughout the entire site. Such as using a heading, and using actual bullet points for each list item. The listing for the elections guidelines does this perfectly, but bullet points should be added in the meeting minutes and photo gallery pages. This concept allows for structure which allows people to read and find things faster.