Tag Archives: analytics

Homepage Usability

Jakob Nielsen, a key figure in web usability has 113 guidelines for homepage usability. I was asked to use the guidelines to assess our new homepage design. The following is a list of what I considered to be the most important guidelines along with whether or not the new design follows them, and some occasional comments.

Middlebury Homepage Usability Guidelines

2008 Web Statistics – Top Content

The following data represents a high level summary of 2008’s “top ten” content areas visited on our http://www.middlebury.edu website.

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Internal (on-campus)

  1. / (homepage)
  2. /academics/
  3. /administration/
  4. /athletics/
  5. /campuslife/
  6. /about/
  7. /services/
  8. /students/
  9. /admissions/
  10. /arts/

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External (off-campus)

  1. /academics/
  2. / (homepage)
  3. /athletics/
  4. /admissions/
  5. /administration/
  6. /about/
  7. /campuslife/
  8. /alumni/
  9. /services/
  10. /jobseekers/

———-

Combined (Internal & External Page Views)

  1. / (homepage)
  2. /academics/
  3. /athletics/
  4. /administration/
  5. /admissions/
  6. /campuslife/
  7. /about/
  8. /services/
  9. /alumni/
  10. /students/

———-

Summary: Aside from the College homepage, Academics, Athletics, Admissions, and Administration are the top content areas.

2008 Web Statistics – Search

The following data represents the summary of 2008’s “top ten” search terms/keywords entered into our Google Search Appliance or GSA, (the search engine for our www.middlebury.edu website).

To improve the overall quality of search results, all of these “top ten” search terms/keywords have been entered as keymatches in the GSA, which basically bumps them to the top of relevant search results.

———-

Internal Searches (from on-campus)

  1. lis
  2. segue
  3. box office
  4. inb
  5. menu
  6. midd
  7. eres
  8. campus map
  9. exam schedule
  10. library

The GSA search was used approximately 358,514 times by internal users during 2008.

———-

External Searches (from off-campus)

  1. tuition
  2. employment
  3. lis
  4. housing
  5. campus map
  6. address
  7. bookstore
  8. museum
  9. transcript
  10. directions

The GSA search was used approximately 404,153 times by external users during 2008.

———-

Combined (Internal & External Searches)

  1. lis
  2. segue
  3. tuition
  4. campus map
  5. employment
  6. box office
  7. bookstore
  8. housing
  9. inb
  10. menu

In total, the GSA search was used approximately 762,667 times during 2008.

———-

Summary: Web site visitors use search, a lot.