When we got our School of Management site redesigned, we spent
several months getting the information design right. We tendered
for a design company to turn that into a good looking site. We
were lucky enough to find a company that was willing to work
with us, giving us advice on what had worked on sites they
had developed, and taking advice from us on exactly what we
mean by semester, pathway, module, academic year (they never
quite got that) and what information our target readers (students)
most often wanted to find. This process is documented at
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/web/
May I suggest that what you need is not a design consultant,
but a usability testing company. They can run experiments on
your current design and new alternatives, then document
exactly which features are obstacles to usability.
There are a number of such companies around. One I happen to
know personally (because he is working on an EU project with
us) is Frank Wilson, of Interaction Design (http://www.i-d.co.uk/).
Of course, you may have an Human-Computer Interaction group within your
own institution.
--
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of
Management and Economics, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK)
Tel. (direct) +44 (0)28 9027 3643 (office) +44 (0)28 9033 5011
FAX: +44 (0)28 9033 5156 mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/
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