Minutes (Dec. 6, 2007) Web Advisory Committee

Present: Dr. Nedal Arar, Dr. Barry Norling, Alan Miller, Debbie Valle, Kat Myers, Lydia Leos, Brian Bell, Heather Cura, Katie Prentice, Roseanne Hurst, Ramiro Fuentes, Dr. Ivon Foster, Doug Hartzler, Gilbert Sosa, Rene Torres, Ida Garcia, Kevin Kjosa, Dr. Robert Badgett, Jim Barrett and Mary Yanes

Dr. Nedal Arar, the chair, called the meeting to order. Committee members approved the Nov. 7 minutes.

Jim Barrett presented the webmaster's report. He said:

• Web traffic on the two institutional servers rose about 0.5 percent in November over the same month in 2006, to 2.1 million page views.
• Faculty Profiles, in its new form, probably would be ready for use in February, and demonstrated its features.

In new business, Katie Prentice discussed the purpose and importance of usability testing for web sites. She distributed a handout about design and usability with references and examples. Ms. Prentice said the essential part of applying usability to the university web site will be to build a logical architecture since the page design already has been finished. Mr. Barrett said Ms. Prentice and her co-workers from the library would return at the January meeting to help with an exercise on judging usability. Ms. Prentice invited any committee members to submit their site for the exercise.

In old business, the committee members spent the majority of the meeting discussing the web-site redesign, and the placement of elements on common headers and footers.

The committee discussed placement of three elements in the header: 1) the universitywide links, 2) the search box, and 3) the slogan that says "We Make Lives Better." All three are situated in the upper right corner.

In No. 1, there was consensus to require that the universitywide links say: University: Home | Calendar | Maps

As for Nos. 2 and 3, the group said it preferred a search box with buttons that let the user select to do a site search or a universitywide search. However the added line needed for the buttons crowded the other two nearby elements. Some committee members asked whether the slogan could be removed to make space. Mr. Barrett asked Rene Torres to relay the question to his director in the Office of External Affairs, and the ad agency that designed the pages.

In related discussion, the committee agreed that the html container "title" on all pages would state the name of the department and the university's name. Example:

Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Dr. Barry Norling commented on the way content was presented in the main part of the pages. Dr. Norling said he thought the order and prominence of the departmental names needed to be switched with the headings for individual pages. The group viewed example pages done both ways and agreed the name of the department needed to be shown in the horizontal grey bar atop any page content, followed by the page's heading. Dr. Norling said the department name still was smaller than the page heading. Mr. Barrett suggested changing the department names to bold-faced typefaces. The group agreed to look at the change on a test page.

Dr. Robert Badgett demonstrated a method he uses to place a list of the most current publications of his department's faculty members on a template page. The method pulls citations from the PubMed database. He also showed a JavaScript application that departments could use to list newspaper and magazine articles that mention their members. Dr. Badgett said he would share the coding with any members who want it.

In a final item related the web redesign, Mr. Barrett showed a proposed replacement logo for the university web portal, inside.uthscsa.edu. Mr. Torres designed the logo rendering. Committee members said they liked the rendering. Ms. Prentice said she also liked it, but said the redesign initiative's style guide proscribed elements that were missing or manipulated in the rendering. The logo, for example, was cropped on one side, and did not state the university's name. Mr. Barrett asked Mr. Torres if he could also ask the Office of External Affairs and the ad agency about what leeway, if any, designers have. He said the advice is particularly important for those who run web applications, because many applications assign little space for a logo.

There was no other business, and the meeting was adjourned.

-- Minutes prepared by Mary Yanes and Jim Barrett

-- Approved Jan. 3, 2008