Remaking the UMass Journalism Department web site

Before and After

This outside link takes you to the journalism site as it exists now: http://www.umass.edu/journal/new/core.html

I am making a site looking something like I think our journalism site should like: Journalism Department, University of Massachusetts

Navigation

Home is here, and it gives a little bit of information on the content of each page in this section of the web site in order to aid navigation, the main tool for which is the top of the screen.

These criticisims of the UMass journalism site were made very preliminarily, before any other web site reviews, and so the page follows no format.  The task was so easy, however, that nothing really could hinder it.

The comparison of the UMass Journalism Department Web Site with that of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is done in standard site review format plus instant comparison/contrast.

If anyone cares to look at some more journalism sites here are some:

• The most remarkable feature of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism is the “Jump to...” dropdown list at the top right of all its interior pages.
• The University of Iowa's School of Journalism and Mass Communication has nothing in particular to reccomend it.
• The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University (reviewed here) makes most navigation one click away by having an always-present menu on the left side of the page (which unfortunately used frames).  It has a heavily loaded main page which is of debatable effectiveness and it has a terrific array of links.
• The University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is a good site in page design and content.  The left side menu stays the same and is always there.  The main problem is that each of the sort of subsites it leads to have no navigation of their own.  Also, some categorization isn't clear, such as the inclusion of “Staff” under “Program.”
• The Journalism site at Texas A&M University has confusing use of JavaScript rollovers and navigation that requires extra clicks because using a menu item leads you to a nearly empty page with a few links to the actual content part of the site.
• Boston University
• Berkeley