Discussion

1. Jonas says:

   January 20, 2011 at 6:53 pm

   Having worked on institutional sites for the better (or worse :) part of 10 years, I will say that it’s very difficult for a team to pull off a strong site of this scale, particularly if the design work is done in house. You’re faced with demoralizing bureaucratic challenges, reams of content, and you have to represent and support a dizzying array of users who often have contradictory needs. It’s no surprise these things come out mediocre, as it’s so hard to meet all the requirements of the organization without everything dissolving into an unorganized mess. Also, internal web teams are constantly understaffed.

   Anyway, one good University site you missed: University of Chicago. http://www.uchicago.edu
2. Joshua Johnson says:

   January 20, 2011 at 7:03 pm

   I definitely agree. As I alluded to in the article, the red tape for these things ridiculous. Designers simply have to please too many people and support too many goals. The result is a lot of things presented poorly rather than a few things presented well. Great comment, U of Chicago looks excellent.
3. alien mack says:

   January 20, 2011 at 7:08 pm

   cgauiw.com Graphic Arts Program at university of the incarnate word in san antonio.
4. wilczy says:

   January 20, 2011 at 7:17 pm

   university at denver has a wonderful site. http://www.du.edu
5. David Garbacz says:

   January 20, 2011 at 7:27 pm

   I’m from Indiana but went to Purdue instead of IU. Huge rivalry but IU’s site is definitely way better.

   Check out http://www.purdue.edu and then barf.
6. Marcel says:

   January 20, 2011 at 7:35 pm

   Boston University is one of my favorites – http://www.bu.edu/
7. jc says:

   January 20, 2011 at 8:39 pm

   I do like the University of Chicago’s site!

   I think Grand Valley State University has a great looking site, too… http://www.gvsu.edu
8. Andy says:

   January 20, 2011 at 8:58 pm

   I completely agree with Jonas. I worked as a web designer/developer for University for nearly 2 years and struggled to get the many stakeholders to approve redesigns. There were way too many politics going on so I had to get outta there! Their main problem was giving each department the freedom to have a unique design and not allowing us to apply a design to pages that were extremely outdated in fear of making other department heads angry. We made some progress, but it was limited. There are still pages that haven’t been touched in 10 years. It’s quite pathetic, in my mind.
9. Afterman says:

   January 20, 2011 at 8:59 pm

   The George Washington University’s Semester in Washington Journalism Program just got a facelift this past year – turned out great. Granted, they are a small program within a large school, so they were able to focus a lot more on design, functionality & content for a specific user, as opposed to the monstrous aspects of entire school.

   http://www.siwj.com
10. Afterman says:

    January 20, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    whoops, wrong URL..

    http://www.siwjournalism.org/
11. Shane traill says:

    January 20, 2011 at 10:01 pm

    I like some of these, although we recently developed a college website in the Uk, which i think is much more engaging and dynamic, take a look at http://www.franklin.ac.uk
12. Matt says:

    January 20, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    Here are a couple in California that I think are not too bad:

    Stanford University – http://www.stanford.edu
    UC Santa Cruz – http://www.ucsc.edu/

    (Both projects of Rolling Orange: http://rollingorange.com/ – not my company but I have friends there.)
13. Leslie Wooten says:

    January 20, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    I have to nitpick: The site you posted for North Carolina isn’t a college/university Web site, but the site for the University of North Carolina *system*. There are 16 public colleges in the system, found listed on the site. I’m a UNC Charlotte graduate (http://www.uncc.edu–it's abysmal); UNC Chapel Hill, a.k.a. UNC (http://www.unc.edu–not much better) was the first public university in NC.
14. Paolo says:

    January 21, 2011 at 12:23 am

    I’m from italy, I work as a web designer in a university.. I do totally agree with Jonas and Andy, inner academical struggles, rivalry and heterogeneity of needs amongst different academic bodies make life very hard for a sane and logical web design.
    Totally agree about chicago.edu as well, I discovered it some months ago and I visit it back very often, I really love it.
    Great article!
15. Andrew says:

    January 21, 2011 at 7:41 am

    @Afterman

    I agree that http://www.siwjournalism.org/ looks good design wise, but the fact that the header, footer, and left side navigation all just kind of sit there seems pretty 90s to me (frames, anyone?). I know it doesn’t use frames, but with the way they implemented the design, why not? It seems like they used a whole lot of code to accomplish something that was already avaliable in a much easier format.

    My final thoughts on it: great design, great concept, but inefficient (albeit creative) execution.
16. Heskin says:

    January 21, 2011 at 9:17 am

    One odd thing that struck me about a lot of the images used on these sites: lots of boring photos of middle-aged and older people in meetings.
17. Tim says:

    January 21, 2011 at 12:25 pm

    Personally, I worked at http://www.smsu.edu for 6 years.

    To second Marcel, I am not quite sure how you missed Boston University. Not only is their main website fantastic, they have many great sub-sites as well.
18. Shannon says:

    January 21, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    Great list! And a neat idea for a post :) Reading through the comments it makes me think it’s a shame that large institutions like universities have so many hoops for designers to jump through, and usually end up with a lousy design and a poor marketing piece because of it. These sites are viewed by so many and could be a great inspiration to students and faculty and represent their state and city proudly. So many large companies understand the value of great design and usability, hopefully universities will start to jump on board as well. On the other hand, some of these designs are nice and do work well, kudos to those designers!
19. TJP says:

    January 21, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    West Virginia University, http://www.wvu.edu/, is the flagship university of West Virginia, not West Virginia State University.
20. John McDuffie says:

    January 21, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    Sadly, schools that offer marketing and web design degrees should be able to pull off a better web presence. I wouldn’t go to a school nor would I respect a degree from a school that offers design and marketing classes if their website looked like some of these.
21. tron paul says:

    January 21, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/773/
22. Al says:

    January 21, 2011 at 4:34 pm

    Texas State?

    You missed http://www.utexas.edu/ and http://www.tamu.edu/ in Texas.
23. Matt says:

    January 21, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    You should consider adding links to the sites.
24. D says:

    January 21, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    It’s University of Wisconsin, not Wisconsin State University.
25. Alex says:

    January 21, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    How about American University? They won the Web Marketing Association’s award for best website in education.

    http://american.edu/media/news/20100128_-Web_Marketing_Association_Best_Web_Site_of_Industry.cfm
26. Jon says:

    January 21, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    I went to North Carolina State, and I enjoy the simpler design they have employed.

    http://www.ncsu.edu
27. Markos says:

    January 21, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    So you’re thinking about taking web development at Massachusetts’ very own Quinsigamond Community College, huh?

    http://www.qcc.edu/
28. David Baker says:

    January 22, 2011 at 4:39 am

    Hey Joshua, the folks here at Oregon State are honored that our site made your “dean’s list” – we’re proud of our amazing in-house team, which put in a lot of late nights and tapped their creativity to pull it off. Thanks for the nod and for the great post.

    Cheers!
29. Garrett Wedan says:

    January 22, 2011 at 9:47 am

    As a student at UND I love seeing UND at the top of this list. I think one thing that helped make our website what it is, was that the web team met with the different constituencies that they were trying to cater to, to get input. Once it was put together and went live, it is in no way static, they are constantly updating things and taking suggestions of how to make things better, and they are very timely in their updates or answers.
30. Jim says:

    January 22, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    What do you think about Dixie College’s future students site??

    Http://www.dixie.edu/futurestudents
31. Jim says:

    January 22, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    Sorry let me link that dixie.edu/futurestudents
32. Bryan says:

    January 23, 2011 at 11:23 pm

    University of Central Florida
    http://www.ucf.edu

    I keep bouncing between like and dislike on any given day. Thoughts?
33. Jean says:

    January 27, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    I disagree with a lot of these picks — they may please you as a designer, but many are busy and don’t make it easy to focus on navigation choices. The ultimate judge of any website is the user, not the designer. If users can transact their business easily and quickly, that’s the test. Can they find the information they want quickly and easily? Can they find a form and fill it out easily? Can they find the event registration page and register quickly? Etc. Most users aren’t visiting University websites to be entertained or dazzled by gorgeous design. I wouldn’t worry about whether my website won an award or a designer’s accolade: I’d do a heck of a lot of usability testing, and go with what works. This doesn’t mean it can’t be delightful to look at, but that isn’t the ultimate test.
34. Grant Reginald says:

    January 27, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    I know its only a college, but this has to be one of the worst sites I’ve ever encountered.
35. Devin Mathias says:

    January 27, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    I like the concept of this post. I find the post itself, however, disappointing. There is NO doubt that the comments above about the red tape, etc. and endless number of constituencies a college or university’s web design team must please providing a challenge to sharp design. There’s a list of fundraising guidelines that includes something like “a letter written by committee will be never succeed.” Sadly, the same applies to many web sites.

    Why did I find this post disappointing? While it was great in concept, it seems like the author got lazy part way through. First, it is clear that this involved a basic “University of (state)” Google search and little more in the way of digging. Otherwise, schools like the University of Louisiana would never be included over Louisiana State University. That being said, it is also disappointing that private institutions are so under-represented. Obviously the number of higher ed. institutions in the USA makes a true analysis and deep-dive challenging, but only truly reviewing 10 of the sites leaves the title of the post misleading.

    My $0.02. Cheers.

    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    Boston University – http://www.bu.edu (as Marcel & Time already noted)
    Duke University – http://www.duke.edu
    Fashion Institute of NY – http://www.fitnyc.edu
    International Center of Photography – http://www.icp.org
    Johns Hopkins University – http://www.jhu.edu
    M.I.T. – http://www.mit.edu
    Ohio State (which pains me, b/c I loathe their athletics!) – http://www.osu.edu
36. DIANA says:

    January 27, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    I think it’s an awesome website!! http://www.fsu.edu/
37. Jay says:

    January 27, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    Hey David Baker or anyone with a good design,

    How did you get all the departments and admins at Oregon State to leave you (or your team) alone so you could do a decent contemporary design?

    I am new to the university setting but have 16 years commercial web experience. I am in the process of educating the university constituency hoping that maybe, just maybe they will let me do my job with the next redesign. I am open to anyone’s recommendations for working with the opinion leaders.

    Thanks!
38. DrRingDing says:

    January 28, 2011 at 4:29 am

    This list appears to be significantly biased toward public universities, and raises serious doubts about its accuracy.
39. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:40 pm

    DrRingDing is right… sure wish my previous comment would pass ‘moderation’ and get posted…
40. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    Let me try my previous post w/o links and see if it works:

    I like the concept of this post. I find the post itself, however, disappointing. There is NO doubt that the comments above about the red tape, etc. and endless number of constituencies a college or university’s web design team must please providing a challenge to sharp design. There’s a list of fundraising guidelines that includes something like “a letter written by committee will be never succeed.” Sadly, the same applies to many web sites.

    Why did I find this post disappointing? While it was great in concept, it seems like the author got lazy part way through. First, it is clear that this involved a basic “University of (state)” Google search and little more in the way of digging. Otherwise, schools like the University of Louisiana would never be included over Louisiana State University. That being said, it is also disappointing that private institutions are so under-represented. Obviously the number of higher ed. institutions in the USA makes a true analysis and deep-dive challenging, but only truly reviewing 10 of the sites leaves the title of the post misleading.

    My $0.02. Cheers.
41. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    Boston University – http://www.bu.edu (as Marcel & Time already noted)
42. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    Duke University – http://www.duke.edu
43. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    Fashion Institute of NY – http://www.fitnyc.edu
44. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    International Center of Photography – http://www.icp.org
45. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    Johns Hopkins University – http://www.jhu.edu
46. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    M.I.T. – http://www.mit.edu
47. Devin Mathias says:

    January 28, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    (split over multiple posts to get through comment filter)
    Some others to consider, that I think are well-designed – listed alphabetically:
    Ohio State (which pains me, b/c I loathe their athletics!) – http://www.osu.edu
48. Sandy Kinney says:

    January 28, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    Get it right….”Wisconsin State University????” There is no such school. You’re showing the “University of Wisconsin – Madison”
49. Tere North says:

    January 28, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    We were challenged by a large, nearly 40 some committee. Oh yes, the politics. Everyone thinks their little piece of the world belongs on the homepage. And faculty/staff are focused on the organization of the university, not how prospective students look at a website. Fortunately, though, we took the to look at nearly 50 websites as part of a small subcommittee effort, not to find the best, but to show some variety and options which were presented to the overall committee for comment. Out of that came a little less confusion, but we turned it over to professional in-house artists who tried to accomplish a nearly impossible task. The campus community was asked to then “vote.” While it certainly still needs more work, the transition to what we have now is so much better than it was (http://www.wiu.edu/university_surveys/campussurveys2008-09.php#WebCampusFeedback).

    It’s time to take the next step, so I certain value any input.
50. Tom Hinds says:

    January 31, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    In addition to all the other issues that are noted here, comprehensive universities are saddled with too many audiences. Eventually, university Web sites will be able to guess what type of visitor has landed on the page (current student, prospective student, staff member, etc.) and serve up individualized content. Until then, it will difficult for comprehensive universities to create sites that please everyone, or even anyone!
51. Bill J says:

    February 2, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Personally I think many of the points in the article are simply arbitrary. Nobody has a right to declare that any particular web-site is good or bad with any authority, simply because it is completely subjective; it isn’t any different than saying that one automobile is better than another based on how it looks or how easy it is to use the controls. What one person finds ugly another may find attractive. What one person may find unintuitive another might find easy to use. Much depends on what the end user wants and needs from a site. Designers need to get group reactions, not single professional opinions. Regards
52. Helen says:

    February 2, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    Would love to get some feedback on the following, vis-a-vis the others considered in this article and comments.

    University of Oregon:
    http://uoregon.edu/

    and
    University of Oregon’s IT Web site:
    http://it.uoregon.edu/

    Thanks!
53. Michael Render II says:

    February 3, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    Thank ya Jesus!!! I have been waiting for a post like this. EduStyle does a great job they don’t really blog alot about the design and infrastructure. Very nice list and very nice designs. I work for nccu.edu web team and I am the designer for the university. We are currently working on a redesign right now for are site and this great inspirational post. Keep up the good posting

    Link to one of the pages I am Designing. What do ya think.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrender/4526225599/
54. Michael Render II says:

    February 3, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    BTW. No BU.edu or American University? What do you guys think about those?
55. dayak says:

    February 4, 2011 at 8:31 am

    nice info bro,

    http://www.ub.ac.id
56. Suzy says:

    February 4, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    Jonas is so right. We are beginning to address the reworking our college’s site, and even getting the right people together to start the conversation is a bureaucratic nightmare. Getting permission to do good work is almost impossible.
57. Primat says:

    February 4, 2011 at 9:06 pm

    Oh man… As a web designer for a University, I only needed to read the first comment, Jonas’s. It’s SPOT ON! I’ve only worked here for 18 months and have already given up on trying to make decent sites. Two web designers to maintain and build 250+ websites and NO CMS! Result = crappy websites and no motivation whatsoever. Grats to the teams that did/do a decent job.
58. Joe says:

    February 8, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    Nice sample of large universities. We’re private and considerably smaller than the big state uni’s, but worth a peak: http://www.hanover.edu
59. Chad says:

    February 8, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    What are your thoughts on our site: http://www.northlandcollege.edu/. Agree with most comments here. For years we’ve basically been running a one man web shop were it was expected that you spew sites out in days to please the dept head and not the target audience which in most cases resulted in average results at best. Usability testing? Forget about it. Very frustrating environment for a designer to work in. “Bureaucratic nightmare. Getting permission to do good work is almost impossible.” Spot on.
60. Steve says:

    February 9, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    Among the many other problems mentioned, most unis just can’t/won’t afford top notch developers, so a lot of it comes down to luck and timing. E.g. scenario:

    In 2005 [blank] has an amazing visual designer and team leader on staff (paid peanuts) who redesigns the site, creates templates for the 100s of reluctant “web staff” members (who can barely open Dreamweaver), and then immediately rides those accolades out the door to a higher salary.

    Over the next five years, a bajillion subsites and pages are created with/based on these templates, making a future redesign an enormous undertaking and a moving target.

    So, yeah, in 2011 it’s going to look dated!

    It’s also impossible to judge effort made based on a few prominent pages, since some redesign projects must take into account thousands of pages and hundreds of web applications across organizations (over which they have no control nor even contact info).
61. Peter says:

    February 10, 2011 at 3:39 pm

    We went through a redesign here at the College of Education at UF. http://education.ufl.edu – We’re fairly happy with it. Check it out and let us know what you think.
62. Greg says:

    February 10, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    Having personally worked on a department website at Washington State over a decade ago, I can tell everyone that they have been mandating good, uniform design for at least that long.

    Great job and Go Cougs!
63. Steve says:

    February 10, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Can someone provide feedback on the Gonzaga University web site – http://www.gonzaga.edu ? I’m curious to know what the experts think.

    Go Zags!
64. Travis Ludwig says:

    February 15, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    What? No Michigan State? You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s gotta be one of the best college sites out there.
65. Ellen says:

    February 22, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    Just FYI, Texas State University isn’t REALLY the state university. University of Texas at Austin is probably the more appropriate representative. And they have a relatively recent redesign.
66. MB says:

    February 22, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    I recommend http://www.edustyle.net/ for this kind of discussion. This post is arbitrary.
67. Elizabeth says:

    March 4, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    I don’t see K-State up there, but http://www.k-state.edu just got a makeover! It’s infinitely better than it used to be.
68. Reido says:

    March 10, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    Thank you putting these up, it’s hard really to know what the conservative aesthetic is when it comes to universities. It’s nice to see them in all one page like this!!
69. Александр says:

    March 11, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    Hello I am a student from Russia. Now I am working on my diplom work and I think that design must be simle, because it is better for user.
70. Hannah says:

    March 18, 2011 at 12:49 am

    It was interesting to see other school websites. When trying to plan a visit to a university it’s ideal to have a website that can give the audience a quick look of the campus. I feel like George Mason university has good organization for future and current students
71. Samuel says:

    April 13, 2011 at 10:08 pm

    Auburn University finally redesigned their site sometime around Jan 2011. It like the simplicity and cleanliness. I also love how they implemented the footers, which are unique per department.

    http://www.auburn.edu/

    Example footers:
    http://www.auburn.edu/academic/nursing/
    http://www.auburn.edu/oit/
    http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/
    http://www.education.auburn.edu/
    http://www.ag.auburn.edu/
72. D. says:

    April 23, 2011 at 2:49 pm

    Eastern Kentucky University Homepage.(redesign project)
    Designed and developed in house with existing people and resources. Open source CMS. Out of pocket cost is almost nil.
    Clean and simple.
73. Anonymous Coward says:

    May 29, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Dude, the Dean’s List is *terrible*. Oh, sure, it may meet whatever cliched criteria designers find fashionable this year, but how does it serve the end-user? Answer: the Dean’s List sucks.

    Pretend you’re a student at any of those Dean’s List colleges: start a stop watch and try to (a) register for classes, (b) check your class schedule, (c) find a list of courses offered this semester, and (d) search the library catalog. While you’re at it, count how many clicks it takes you to accomplish each task and don’t forget to take special note any time you choose the wrong link or have to squint/change the font size of tiny print.

    These are all tasks which, if the college is any good, will be performed thousands of times by each student. If good design has any utility, it means getting the work flow right on those actions, not having a scrolling picture bar immediately under a title bar (with the logo aligned-left) or – heaven forbid! – using comic sans.
74. SP says:

    July 28, 2011 at 4:24 am

    I rather liked Alaska one. For us older academics, text works better than large bold images and banners that you click on. Most visitors to my (large) university site want very basic tasks – logging into email, choosing classes, etc. Clever imagery and design appeals more to ‘marketing’ departments btu who knows if it actually brings in more kudos and students for the university. Probably not – reputations for academics do not rely on slick websites.
75. Junior Martin says:

    November 21, 2011 at 12:37 am

    I do like the depth of your evaluation. However, is it possible to give me a quick review of this website. Thanks
76. Gordon says:

    February 9, 2012 at 9:34 pm

    I work there, so I’m biased, but as Marcel, Tim, Michael, and Devin have mentioned, Boston University (http://www.bu.edu) is fantastic and has done several great redesigns over the past few years. Digging down further into the site and you get the Admissions site (http://www.bu.edu/admissions), the Annual Report (http://www.bu.edu/ar/2011), and others.
77. Margie says:

    February 16, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    I’m not a web designer but I did see a truly innovative web design that had right hand navigation. Think about it. You don’t have to move your cursor all the way across the page… it’s right there with the right hand scroll bar. Just my two cents.
78. samer alaa says:

    February 16, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    i agree with you about let a single talented web design student take a stab at redesigning his university homepage, he/she could easily come up with something more attractive and more effective than the building full of people the university pays to oversee the site.

Interested in having the Design Shack team offer smart advice and incredible promotion for your new design?

A Design Critique gives you the opportunity to receive insightful opinions and advice on your design. This is published as an article on Design Shack to give you plenty of exposure to hundreds of thousands of readers.

Contact us to find out more, and set up your critique!

With a Design Analysis, we produce an personal, in-depth report into every aspect of your website. It covers code, design, layout, semantics, SEO, and everything else, all provided in a beautiful printed report.

We can also offer advice and assistance with your whole design project, even managing the entire project for you. We'll work with selected partners in our amazing Design Shack community to produce a design that you love.