Submitter’s comments: As an avid reader of your work, I am eager to share with you Brown University’s latest misguided and incoherent foray into web design. Clearly the staff members of Brown’s Public Affairs and University Relations division have learned nothing from their previous failed use of Mystery Meat Navigation on the Brown Graduate School pages.
In fact, this time they have used it as the central focus of the university’s new main web page–a page that is both poorly designed and overwhelmingly difficult to use. As someone who has worked at Brown, this is another sad example of a division (that is ostensibly in charge of the university’s image) proudly trumpeting a poor design concept despite the protests and recommendations of its main users: students and staff. When a design division ignores the needs its main audience and is not accountable for its actions, this is the unfortunate result.
The site is being previewed, but will be the main site (www.brown.edu) by September 10.
Vincent’s comments: Brown, Brown, Brown. Do you have to muck up the front page of such a prestigious school with your latest redesign?
I have no idea whether or not the statements about the students and staff protesting the design are true. However, when I saw the new home page, here’s what went through my mind:
- Jeez! That’s a lot of s**t-brown color on a page.
- Damn! This has to be one huge-a** page. (397,555 bytes, it turns out)
- Where’s the blankety-blank focus?
Mousing over any section brings up an image and some text. It’s distracting, to say the least, and it keeps me from focusing on what’s important on the page. Oh, what is important on the page? I’m not sure and I think this is where the page falls apart. I looked at the left-hand topics and after thinking about their order, decided that this was probably the logical arrangement of topics (the location of “Research” still bothers me).
What really bother me is that on my monitor the right-hand links from “Alumni” to “Administrative Offices” move up the screen when I mouse over them. In the case of “Alumni” it looks like the links are “Campaign for Academic Enrichment” and “Annual Fund.” When you mouse over the links in the top groups, the picture does not move the links.
I showed the page to my wife, expressed my concerns, and asked her what she thought about the page. Her answer was brilliantly succinct “It’s too complicated.”
One reason for its complexity is they went out of their way to make sure the page is Valid XHTML Strict. As I’ve said before, you can get hung up on the validity of your code. With their current home page having a GooglePageRank of 9, there’s very little they can do.
Brown is very keen on every department following a template guideline. The templates are quite functional and help bring some uniformity and reign in those who want to be creative but have no talent.
The new Brown University home page
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