Analysis of the Content and Characteristics of University Websites with Implications for Web Designers and Educators

Abstract

The development of customer-centered websites is a difficult but essential component of many organizations' overall management information systems. Specifically, the study examined the content and characteristics of the web home pages and admissions-related web pages of a sample of institutions listed in the U.S. News & World Report List of Best Colleges & Universities to help web developers create customer-centric sites and to help web design educators teach students to create such sites. Overall, the content of the text and the images was user-centered. Three design principles were followed on over 90% of the websites: consistency of font styles as well as text and background colors, fast loading time, and hyperlinks placed in the two places users view first. Accessibility by the visually impaired may be difficult as numerous websites used images and bullets as hyperlinks and did not have high contrast between text and background colors.

• websites
• content analysis
• web design
• user-interface