Looking at these sites I'm happy to see that most of them have adopted at least some of the current brand standards – we're presenting a much more cohesive look to the Web than we used to which is great for the institution as a whole. I know that somewhere around here we have a bunch of research that University Relations commissioned in regards to the homepage design and the site standard that's based off of that and , if I recall correctly, the research pointed to the green top of page bar as a good way to convey the MSU Green branding while still allowing white space usage on the rest of the page. On the MSU homepage it also draws the eye immediately to the navigation placed at the top which helps site users get to their commonly used resources quickly. Apple's site is a good example of this principle – they don't go quite as bold as we do, but the contrasting color versus the rest of the page makes it very simple to pick out the important navigation elements at speed.

----
 Jack Kramer
 Manager of Information Technology
 University Relations, Michigan State University
 w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955

From: Laurence Bates <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Laurence Bates <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 10:15:11 -0400
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [MSUNAG] MSU web sites in context

After resetting some Ethernet switches this morning, Ichecked the websites of MSU colleges and was interested to see the different styles used in context with each other and with notable web sites such as Apple, Microsoft, the New York Times and the BBC.  They all look great and your mileage may vary of course but the take-away for me was that the siteswith the MSU green header seem to be rather top heavy.  Sorry if that was your toe that I just stepped on, especially since I really like the gentle leadership that the MSU web team has provided in recent years, but enough $0.02 can buy a small coffee.

 

Food for thought…

 

Laurence Bates

 

 

Laurence A. Bates

College of Education

Michigan State University

217E Erickson Hall

East Lansing

MI 48824

517-355-2178

[log in to unmask]

 

An exuberant rationalist...