Notice that the link entitled "Academics" is completely gone from page 1.

quote:

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Originally posted by: ha ha!
"It's there, under "Programs of Study."  Probably not a good change at all."

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Has anyone ever seen this listed this way on any other university website? It is completely new to me.

It didn't take the Dome long to dump Ms. Mader's biggest web project of all.  Gone are "the gun" page design and even the fonts she once required of all university-approved web pages.

I also notice there's no link to Libraries.  If you don't have Academics, why would you need books?

And the page is still using the SACS seal.

Sorry, I think it looks cheesy...especially that highlighted/different font "Southern Miss" in the title (I still shudder every time I hear "Southern Miss"...another horrible, invented tradition thing).

Academics=Programs of Study??? That sounds like a Tier 4 move, in my opinion. I've never seen another university make that switch.

Truth

FWIW: The first thing I look for on a school's website is the link to the library; if it isn't there in an obvious way, I think less of the website team.

Oh my gosh. This is hideous. Uggg.

I don't understand why they spend so much time over and over and over with meetings and teams and so on and still keep coming up with the ugliest things. How about making the front page up-to-date with actual news? How about keeping any of it up to date?

This is so embarrassing. Why can't they learn to use color properly and not saturate the page so that the gold starts looking nauseating? And the letters in capitals - why, why, why?

Here are some examples of well-done Web sites with teams that know the difference between an efficient design and a dog ugly one:

http://www.lu.edu/
http://www.ksu.edu/
http://www.ecu.edu/
http://www.isu.edu/
http://www.nyu.edu/
http://www.scu.edu/
http://www.csu.edu/

quote:

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Originally posted by: ha ha!
"It's there, under "Programs of Study."  Probably not a good change at all."

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Since much of my day is spent seeking information on the Web about various universities, my impression is that this revision is an example of bad design, and sufficiently gratuitous to be an educational example of bad Web practices. 

Changing "Academics" to "Programs of Study" is obscure enough to make it hard to find critical information.  Whatever happened to "keep it simple?"  Although it could be argued that "the listing is alphabetical,"  most "first-tier" institutions put "Academics" above "Athletics," both literally and figuratively.  This revision strongly suggests to the rest of the world that institutional priorities are 'skewed' in Hattiesburg.

It's been months in the planning. MONTHS. But the two gals mentioned above are good gals. This was a team effort, from what I understand, so it's a team failure.

"Programs of Study" has listed under it much more than academic programs of study.  For example it has Academic and Graduate Council minutes, Academic Forms, the Calendar, Graduate Bulletin etc., etc.  This needs to be corrected ASAP.  The word "Academics" would be a much better heading than "Programs of Study".

Where's the online course eval link? Let's get rid of that 2 weeks before the end of the semester, or at least make it real, real hard to find. That's a good idea.

I have never seen such a horrible university website. It is cluttered. Nothing is intuitive when trying to use it. Usually when one wishes to return to the previous page, one clicks on back (upper left hand corner); but on this poorly done site, one has to click on return in the lower right corner. Besides the comments made earlier, it is very difficult to be able to quickly find faculty members addresses, phone numbers, etc. This is truly an embarrassment to USM. Didn't they bother to look at other truly world class universities websites? If this is the results of months of work and the work of a committee (the committee is probably why it stinks), then it was a waste of time. Why weren't those on campus who are very talented and creative in website designs asked to help? Just because one is in PR does not mean that one is gifted or even trained in website construction. This would not make me want to look into applying to USM.

While there may (or may not) be other things wrong with the new site (design, etc.), the handling of academics is absolutely horrible. First, just to call them programs of study. Then to lump the minutes of different councils, etc. all together under the same umbrella. This is NOT clear thinking.

This is website is NOT user friendly, it's ulgy yellow color at the bottom hides text, which is also in yellow, it's menu's are confusing and it's BAD public relations to exhibit this as our "webpage" People will NOT find anything worth coming to USM for.

The SACS seal and address is required to be posted on the front page.