Friday, January 23, 2009

Bigger Is Better

We've upgraded the look of our at-large site (www.NCCU.edu)!

"What? Didn't you just finish launching y'all's redesign" Well... Yes, we did that, over the Christmas holidays.

"So then, what up with your 'upgrade'?" It's a graphic/UI enhancement optimizing the template for 1024 x 768 screen resolutions.

"So, what does *that* mean? And why did you do it?"

Good question - Using our previous smaller screen optimization, users with larger screens, saw a site that looked "well, aiight, I guess... a little 'skrunched up'... " You see, 800 x 600 was the standard several years ago. But today, that standard of 1024 x 768, is universally acknowledged within the Web Development/Usability communities [e.g., the W3C, among others].

While our initial impulse was to accommodate those with sub-standard computer gear, our analytics simply did not justify it, as only about 3% of our visitors used 800 x 600. By far, most of our site visitors, use today's standard screen settings. We concluded that there were too many folks who ended up sacrificing the quality of their NCCU web site experience, for the benefit of too few. Is was a tough decision to swallow, but at the end of the day, that decision enhanced your overall web experience.

This way, we think the site looks a lot better... for a lot more people. Now, the content has a little room to breathe, as it were. More room for Mikey Render, our graphics ace wunderkind to blast you.

But what do YOU think? We really really do want to know. Go to the site www.nccu.edu and click the "Feedback" tab, always floating in the lower right corner of your screen.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

New Training Application

ITS Web Services has created a centralized location to find and register for training at NCCU. If you would like to build your business process skills, learn how to use a new computer application, increase your productivity, or simply fuel your passion for learning, then visit http://www.nccu.edu/training/ to see what training courses are available!