Don’t Panic! School Software Can’t Eat a Pebble, Much Less the World.
I am going to Madison College (formerly Madison Area Technical College). Like just about every other school I’ve visited, my school has a mobile version of its website. Also like most other school websites (mobile or otherwise) it sucks. It really couldn’t eat the world even if it tried.
If I’m going to a school website, chances are I’m either looking for information on how to apply to the school or, I need to access my online student accounts. This, Madison College does well.
Where Madison College falters is lower down the page where a big “Virtual Tour” clutters up the home page. Virtual tours are probably lower on my list of favorite things than cold canned pasta in a wet sleeping bag. Virtual tours never work the way they should if they are interactive and if its a video, I might as well have driven around there myself.
My version of the app removes the virtual tour and makes it easy to get to what you need quickly. Fewer images means a faster loading time and the flat colors help do away with confusing gradients and the “is this a button or not” problem.
Rather than use images for the buttons, I went with words which are quickly understandable and unambiguous. This saves time that would otherwise be spent swiping back and forth through menus looking for what you want.
I kept the school’s color scheme because that’s an integral part of the school’s branding and public image.
When students use their school’s website, they want to know when their classes are, what paperwork they need to fill out and pay their bills. They just want easy access to the tools they use every day without struggling with a crappy interface.
(A crappy interface much like the one Tumblr offers for text posts. It won’t let me add a picture so I’ll simply put that in another post also tagged with #madisoncollegeapp)