Dispatch from the Front
Well, we’ve been live for six days now and I’m happy to say that the only major complaints we’ve received are about the weather page. That, in my not so humble opinion, is pretty darn cool. In an obsessive way that can only be attributed to those of us who understand just how big a role the weather plays here in Ithaca. (Even I will admit to checking the live view to see what it’s like outside while working diligently in my windowless office.)
This week has seen a flurry of updates to the site. We’ve done pushes to production every day to correct errors, make changes, and add departments or other links that were accidentally omitted. Ted Tuazon and I have achieved a near mind-meld status in this process and you all should give him a big round of applause for not having a psychotic break because of it.
News Headlines: Give US 10 Minutes, We’ll Give you Cornell
As for the news headlines, you’re right, Dan. They should be changing more than once a week. We’re scheduled to push new ones this evening (in our regularly scheduled weekly update), but we all agree that four times a month is not enough. Thing is, we’re also all new to this type of model for a website. It’s going to take us a while to make it happen like clockwork. I can tell you this, though: an administrative tool to handle this very problem is in development for Phase 2. We need to be able to make changes to those headlines on a moment’s notice. We also need to figure out the best way to work with the News Service to make that process flow smoothly. Be patient, all. We’ve just taken a giant leap forward for Cornell?now it’s time to figure out how to make those small steps for man.
A Map of the World
Let me see if I can channel Thomas Richardson for a moment in answering some of the questions about the map on the front page.
As I recall, there are plans to expand this map to include the other Cornell locations (Washington, Arecibo, Rome, Mars?). And?I’m sorry, but that’s all Thomas is willing to share with me from the great beyond. We must have angered his spirit somewhere along the way. Perhaps there are disbelievers among us.
I’ll do some research on this and get back to you guys with specifics, okay?
A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
Nicola brings up some excellent points about crediting University Photography for the amazing work they have done generating the beautiful images on the site. I spoke with her privately about this, but I want to make sure they get the public recognition they deserve.
UPhoto has been providing images for cornell.edu since its inception. You (and we) have them to thank for 99% of the views of campus that have been presented over the years. How about another round of applause?
The credits page on the site needs work. And we need to figure out a good way to make sure that they (and the freelancers) get acknowledged for their contributions. This is high on my personal (and ever-growing) list of things to do for Phase 2.
A Room With a View
Folks have been asking about the addition of web cams. Two things:
1. If you know of some, submit them! Just make sure they’re Cornell related. I for one, would love to know if our compatriots in Doha, NY, and the rest of the world have campus cams of their own. I think those would be great additions to the site.
2. The “Duffield Cam” was struck by lightning (no escape from the weather!!) recently and is in for repairs. The kind folks at Engineering inform me that it will be returned to working condition soon.
And, finally
I’d like to thank all the students that have emailed me expressing interest in participating in the management of the Student Life page. When I have a spare moment to think, or, you know, breathe, I’ll be getting back to you all individually with information on “the plan”.
Onward!
Lisa
P.S. According to Monday’s Daily Sun, I am now the VP for Communications and Media Relations. Someone kindly tell that Tommy Bruce fellow to get his stuff out of my office? I’m on my way to OHR to bang on doors about an increase in salary commensurate with my new responsibilities to the university. I need to get this through before Andy Guess and his crew print the correction!
Great site. It’s definitely an improvement. As a fellow web developer and designer, I can understand the scope of this project.
I noticed that the front image cycle seems to only include 4 images each day that I visit. Is this intentional? I think it would be more logical to cycle through the dozen(s) of images at random…
The idea of putting other locations on the homepage map would give it more substance. I particularly like the idea of insetting Mars. Very clever.
Thanks for reading,
Prospective Student
“pat of a 50-city tour”—as much as I am trying not to be a grammar or typo cop, it is not heartening to see that kind of a mistake on the portal page to the whole site–someone has got to proof, and not just rely on spell check….it really cheapens the whole effort to have that kind of mistake.
Last night, I posted this correction–it has still not been made—who is in charge of this so it can be corrected rather than having the home page replete with typographical errors?
I am still a little confused about the specifics of the homepage news issue. I was a little disappointed to learn that only a weekly news update was scheduled. Even then, only one of the three headlines was changed last night: The “Napster” and “new website” stories were left in place. I know that you all fully understand the problem – and I appreciate the straight forward response – but how far are we from the Phase II solution? Is there really no temporary solution – any way of updating some of the headlines on a biweekly basis, or at least, changing all of the headlines on a weekly basis? I am uneasy because Phase II will last for over a year and there was no indication that the tool’s completion is in the immediate future.
In response to comment (1), part of the final redesign of the homepage was intended to highlight the “beauty at cornell.” Therefore we wanted to make sure visitors got to see as many pictures as possible everytime they visited the homepage. Randomly choosing image was no an optimal solution for this. It would work, but instead of risking users seeing the same image twice without seeing all of them, we decided to cycle the images.
You’re right, the images come as sets, currently about 4 in each. Our designers worked hard to generate enough images to get the ball rolling, and most likely more will be added in the future (or old images will be replaced).
The programming behind this is actually pretty cute.
It would be great if there were a “featured alumni” “alumni in the news” section, and some of the alumni currently featured on the site, such as Steve Sinofsky ’87, had their names highlighted. It could encourage more donations.
I imagine the cycling code is rather clever. I understand how this way no image is displayed twice in a row and viewers can continually refresh to see all the images in sequence.
Although it is an extremely minor issue and the development team surely has other problems to investigate, the user is currently limited to viewing 4 images on any one visit. I think the homepage could make better use of the available photos by cycling through all the photos instead of one set of 4.
On that note, perhaps every minute or so the image could be rotated automatically using JavaScript?
Just throwing out some ideas. I understand how busy you are with more important issues. Thanks for reading.
In response to comment (7), those are all good ideas, and we considered them or similar ideas when designing the page. This is definitely an important issue though, because the homepage must make a good impression on users as they come to the site, especially since most visitors to cornell.edu are prospective students wanting to learn more about the university.
That said, there were some design requirements that had to be met. One was to give the site a “fresh” feel everyday by presenting a different batch of images. Another was as I already mentioned to highlight the beauty at Cornell. Another was to minimize javascript throughtout the site to minimize browser issues. This last constraint was more to give our designers a break from worrying about javascript incompatibilities and focus on getting a good product out there for phase I.
You’ve got some good ideas there, and I’m sure they’ll be considered as part of phase II. Thanks for giving us lots of feedback.
The letters of the hompage’s headlines still lose their tops? This problem had been previously mentioned by Roger on 8/21. Has this issue been looked at? Currently I am using a Cornell library PC with IE v6, but I have also seen this problem on many other computers.
In response to (9), that’s a strange bug in IE that appears to be related to size of the font specified in the View -> Text Size menu. At medium, larger, and largest the text is fine, but at smaller and smallest it is cut off. This is an issue that needs to be fixed as soon as possible (and hopefully will be). IE tends to act very strange when it comes to CSS. To see another fun bug, IE6 shows the side drop shadow for the new images but not the bottom drop shadow. Compare the images to a mozilla-based browser and you’ll see the problem.
Please work your magic on the CUinfo page!
The law school virtual tour videos do not seem to work on any of the Cornell library computers. The video controls jump around the screen and the images never appear. I could not figure out who to contact about that… does anybody know?
Another problem is that the bird feeder live view does not work. The video feed never loads. I have tried the live view on numerous library computers (again, these computers use IE v6). I contacted those directly responsible for the live view, but I also wanted to mention it here.
Another thought…
I would like to start by saying that Explore Cornell is one of my favorite parts of Cornell.edu. The panoramas on Explore Cornell are amazing – I have never been so impressed with our campus! It would be a shame for the casual visitor to miss these panorama galleries because they do such a wonderful job of portraying this campus’ beauty. However, currently there is a good chance that the casual visitor will bypass these galleries. As an example, in order to get to a panorama gallery of McGraw, a vistor would have to click on Virtual Tours >> The Cornell Virtual Tour (please remember, there is more than one tour to choose from) >> Sites and Landmarks >> McGraw Tower >> Virtual Clocktower. The link to “Virtual Clocktower” is an easy-to-miss link on the side of the page. It is difficult to navigate through all of the panorama galleries since each is embedded in a different page within the Cornell Vitual Tour. Since this is one of the most impressive elements of our site (this is not only my opinion), can a panorama link be added on the homepage next to the “Virtual Tours” and “Live View” links? Whenever I show somebody these galleries, they are shocked by how much care and effort must have gone into making them and I would like to make sure that people don’t just pass it by.
The new design for the weather page truly is awful and completely undermines the utility of the page. All the crud at the top and right means that the actual content you want to read is pushed into the lower right hand corner of the window. Plus, the forecast (which is far more interesting than the current weather) is in such a small typeface that it’s barely readable. I look forward to seeing a redesign that makes the page both readable and functional again by focusing on the actual content rather than all the page trimming.
So has there been any discussion into using the temporary placeholder logo from the preview site until the board of trustees approves the new insignia? I really think it would complete the site, especially if we’re going to wait until October to replace it (and what if the trustees don’t like the new design? will there be nothing on the site until the following trustee meeting?)
I know this has been discussed before, but the images of people on the main page (at the bottom-right of the rotating image) really puts a damper on the whole page. The page would be much cleaner and more elegant if that particular section was removed.
This “Any person…any study,” slogan makes it seem as if Cornell would admit just about any applicant to study at this fine institution. While I admire Cornell’s committment to diversity, I also admire their selectivity in chosing the finest students from around the world. I’d like to think really isn’t just “any person” that comes here for an education. Perhaps a change in the displayed motto is in order?
i agree with lana
I also agree with Iana.
Everyone is getting in the redesign, too. Microsoft just redid their website, too. Very different style than the Cornell.edu, but effective nonetheless.
I don’t see why encouraging applications would necessarily be a bad thing. Isn’t this exactly what “Any person… any study” encourages? More applications will make the school more selective, which will reflect itself in those organizations that compile such statistics. I personally wouldn’t have been less inclined to apply to Cornell had I heard of said slogan, and those who would are probably the same ones who wouldn’t have chosen Cornell, anyway.
This from the Newsweek-Kaplan College Guide (25 “hottest” now on MSN portal):
“HOTTEST FOR CITY HATERS
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Technically, Ithaca is a city, but no one would mistake it for Manhattan. Cornell’s rural, upstate New York campus is bounded by deep gorges (prompting the bumper sticker ithaca is gorges). Even during the long winters, many students say the scenery is spectacular—a good antidote to a demanding course schedule that students call the toughest of the Ivies. The school’s biggest draw is its academic diversity, with top-ranked undergraduate schools of engineering, arts and sciences, architecture, hotel administration, industrial and labor relations, agriculture and human ecology. Another plus is the food, considered to be among the best campus cuisines in the country.”
This seems to underscore the themes that make the most sense–difficult school, wide range of offerings. Maybe we should forget the “any person” part of mini-motto, and go for the “any study” epigram and play off of that. That is the aspect of Cornell that does still set it apart from any other Ivy.