UC Berkeley
www.berkeley.eduThough well designed and apparently easy to navigate, actually accomplishing a task on the UC Berkeley site was surprisingly difficult. The Berkeley site had higher than average consistency, but ended up being poorly organized, taking many more clicks than most other sites in order to accomplish fairly basic tasks.
- Visual appearance
- Consistency
- Use of web standards
- Accessibility
- Download time
- Navigation/information architecture
- Tasks
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The UC Berkeley home page: area visible at 800x600 with standard IE6 chrome |
Visual appearance
The UC Berkeley home page has very bold color scheme, based on the UC colors. The page consists of four main areas: a large branding area along the top right of the page, a news/features-type bar along the left side of the page, a primary links area below the branding region, and a secondary links area ("Cal Student Connection") beneath that. The overall feel of the design is similar to that of a portal website.
Branding is extremely clear, with the word " Berkeley" in very large type across the top of the page, with the words "University of California" directly below. No one visiting this page would have any difficulty in knowing where they were.
About 50% of the UC Berkeley home page is visible on an 800x600 monitor running IE6 with standard browser chrome. All of the main links appear above the fold. The entire width of the page fits easily within the horizontal viewing area.
No address or contact information appears on the home page.
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The UC Berkeley Division of Undergraduate Education home page |
Consistency
From the home page, the second, third, and often fourth level of the UC Berkeley site follows the site template perfectly. The interior template used has a very clean and well organized design. However, beyond that level, each department has it's own design. Like Harvard, most of these designs are of relatively high visual quality, though there are several notable exceptions (e.g., Gay Studies).
Due to the depth of the main site template, consistency is somewhat better than at most universities, and most subsites (with the exception of departmental subsites) do use at least an approximation of the standard UC blue and gold. Most, but not all, subsites also provide a standard link back to the UC Berkeley home page.
Overall, Berkeley rates much higher than average for site consistency among universities.
Use of web standards
The UC Berkeley home declares a DOCTYPE of HTML 4.01 Transitional, but does not validate due to several rather minor errors. The UC Berkeley home page does use linked CSS styles. There are only a few javascript scripts in the home page (the typical Dreamweaver rollover scripts). No external .js files are called.
Accessibility
Virtually all links on the UC Berkeley home page are text-based, making the site more accessible for disabled users. There is also a "text-only" link at the bottom of the page.
However, the UC Berkeley home page does not pass compliance with Section 508 due to failure to properly label a form element. The Berkeley home page does meet WCAC Priority 1 compliance, but not levels 2 or 3.
Download Time
For UC Berkeley home page:
With a modem connection (44kps): 17 seconds
Total page size including images: 52Kb
Number of images: 17
Navigation/information architecture
Site navigation on the Berkeley home page is portal-like, with text-based main headings with a few smaller subheadings beneath the main heading. The main headings are in two columns and are alphabetical:
- About UC Berkeley
- Academics
- Administration
- Alumni, Parents, & Friends
- Applying to Berkeley
- Libraries, Museums, & Arts
- Research
- Services & Goods
- Sports
- Students
- Teaching Resources
- Working at Berkeley
Since the list is alphabetical, there is no taxonomic sense to the order of the links. Some links are task-based ("Applying to Berkeley"), some are audience-based ("Alumni, Parents, & Friends"), some are organizationally-based ("Academics", "Administration") and some are topically-based ("Libraries, Museums, & Arts", "Services & Goods").
This might appear as a hopeless mishmash except that the layout is easy to scan and the subheadings provide a good deal of clarity to the meaning of the main headings.
There are links for contact information or campus maps in a small navigation area at the bottom of the home page.
Tasks
Find out how to apply for financial aid
There were no direct links to financial aid on the home page, but my first guess that financial aid would appear under "Applying to Berkeley, proved correct. This was a fairly straightforward task, with no false starts, though there were many more links to navigate through than necessary.
- Click on "Applying to Berkeley" (on the home page);
- Click on "Fees, Financial Aid & Scholarships" (this takes you to an anchor link lower on the page);
- Click on "Financial Aid & Scholarships";
- Click on "Financial Aid Office";
- Click on "New and Continuing Students";
- Click on "Financial Aid Forms";
- Click on the desired form.
Find description of bachelor's in Chemistry
After several false starts, I was unable to find a detailed description of the bachelor's in Chemistry degree program.
Find list of jobs on campus
There were so many links to follow in this process that I felt sure I must have taken a wrong turn. However, I did finally end up in the right place. This process was far too involved and tedious to be useful.
- Under "Working at Berkeley" click on "Jobs" (on the home page);
- Click on "Staff Positions";
- Click on "Find listings and learn how to apply";
- Click on "http://jobs.berkeley.edu";
- Click on "External Applicants";
- Click on "View Job Posting / Apply for Job";
- Select your search criteria and click "Search".