I presented my sitemap to the group of teachers as well and Chris pointed out that it’s for a microsite, so I didn’t need all the features I had originally planned. It kind of bugged me, because I wanted something segregated from the main credit-earning program because these people are in the Summer and Evening program for different reasons and are at different points in their career. Another reason was that the main site isn’t engaging. I think I want to integrate social media into every website. One of my favorite Art Sites is Boooooom! And one of the greatest things about it is their sidebar. You can see the activity of people on the site while you’re on it. If a link is liked somewhere, the homepage viewers know about it. That’s pretty cool. I would think for a professionals/alumni forum, the same widget would be beneficial and perhaps cause some conversations to start. I’m sure there are places like that and the Facebook page for the program is a good place to start. Facebook has annoyed me so much. (Not enough for me to quit, there’s not enough annoyance in the world for me to give up the Facebook lifeline. Everyone’s on Facebook, so we tolerate it when they willy-nilly change the format. (tangent!)

Anyways, Chris said that microsites plaster most of their content on the homepage, with a couple of adjoining pages but mostly point back to the mothership of content. Tim said that you shouldn’t make people click away from your site where you can’t control their experience, what about microsites? Is there a way to keep the header that reminds them to register whilst they click away?

I made my case that there at least needed to be a separate staff page. Only a fraction of the teachers teach summer and evening courses and I didn’t want to give the user information that wasn’t relevant to them. I stated that a microsite needs a microstaff and Jill laughed. In the program, I have no idea what it means when teachers laugh. I think that it’s ambiguous every time.

Next, wireframes.

(Earlier Post Relating to This Project)