Argh. Why have university websites become so opaque that you have to be a ninja just to find a list of departments, schools, and faculties? When you finally do, faculty are hidden away behind opaque tabs.
University websites now seem a shell to attract research partners, donors, and (ostensibly) students, forgetting their main function is still to produce knowledge and teach and learn.
It shouldn't take long to find basic info - who's doing what and in which fields.
Our medical school administration has decided that they know how to run websites and are redoing all of ours. Their focus groups told them that people like to scroll so you can't get to any links about our department without scrolling. 🤦
Our school did something similar a few year ago and folks have quickly learned that no one will scroll past a certain point. So now we have template designs geared for long scrolling that everyone uses for brief content and it's... not great.
@prachisrivas@academicchatter it's true at our community college, too -- and they constantly change things so search engines don't find anything. I had an employee come for help just getting to the portal b/c they'd changed the address a week or two and the training session he haad just been to gave the old one....
It's mindboggling that universities have chosen to do this. I can't understand it. Since when did departments and faculty members become incidental to the work of the university. I long for the old days when the websites were basic.
This is what we do. This is who's here. This is where we are. Really.
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