On Tuesday night, I received an email from my dean, asking me to a meeting she'd set up so that we could "have a conversation about a concern that she'd been asked to address." When I asked for a bit of info so that I could prepare, she said it was "best" that I just show up.
So I did, today, after conversing with quite a few people yesterday about how weird it was that I was being asked to talk about a "concern" yet not told what it was. One friend said it was a "set up"; other friends encouraged me to bring along a union representative.
Anyway, the dean started the conversation with "I need to talk to you about your email to John Doe." John Doe? I wracked my brain, trying to figure out who that might be, what email I might have sent or someone else might have sent.
Turns out I'd sent feedback, submitted via the "feedback" link on our new college website, that insulted the recipient, John Doe. Feeling hurt and insulted, John had told his supervisor, who'd told the academic VP, who'd asked my dean to handle it.
It never occurred to me that the "feedback" link would be a *specific* email to a *specific* person. Usually, info given via feedback is routed to the folks who can deal with the concerns. Not at my college: our "feedback" goes directly to the webmaster himself.
Evidently, what upset him so were my capital letters on "EXTREMELY" and my final comment that our college website has been used by other colleges as what not to do (I'd heard that this summer, and was a bit chagrined).
*Sigh*. Our college's infrastructure and communication has been bad for all the years I've been there, and now the technology is exaggerating the gaps. It's worse than I've ever, ever seen, anywhere. Our "public face" embarrasses me and confuses students. We have put the entire design of our college's website in the hands of a easily-offended fellow who does not have a four-year degree and therefore is intimidated by faculty.
Why didn't we hire a webmaster who had earned at least a bachelor's degree? It seems shortsighted to choose someone with an AA degree as the designer for a *college*'s web presence.
Evacuation roots
5 hours ago
2 comments:
The homepage is a disorienting mishmash of flashing and colors and so on.
I don't think that a BA would likely get you much better; this is just "trial and error," where one improves by experiencing feedback on errors. This guy isn't there yet.
Hmm, evidently his experience includes having his own "web design" company -- yet if you go to the website for that "company," you find a place-holder and an apology.
But this guy has been with the college for over two years, "working" on the website that whole time, for our IT czar who's incompetent (also someone with only a BS degree, yet a vice president, earning a vice president's salary).
This website iteration is supposedly "better" than the last, but it's completely non-intuitive, almost completely non-searchable.
I've provided feedback before, but it's gotten ignored. The IT folks are overworked, and when they get criticism they just shut down -- call us "complainers" who don't know anything.
Hmmm. Anyone ever heard of "user testing" or "usability testing"? It seems as if NONE has been done with our web design.
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