A university Website design project: the design process, the prototype and some design issues

WebFeat was a World Wide Web site design project undertaken on behalf of five departments and an administrative office of the University of Washington's College of Engineering. The role of the WebFeat core team was to provide design and technical guidance for the six teams working directly with these units. The core team created a prototype from which the unit teams designed their individual sites. Later the core team helped implement the unit sites. As part of the design effort, the core team examined numerous university Web sites and thought through a variety of design issues. Three are discussed in this paper: (1) indicating the identity of individual units within the hierarchical structure of the institution; (2) maintaining visual consistency throughout the site, and (3) harmonizing the messages conveyed by the university's home page and the home pages of the university's colleges and departments.