analyzing the ombudsman website

Target Audience: Students and faculty members at MSU who develop problems and grievances with the University.

Most Common Tasks: Resolves conflicts and disputes and helps faculty sort through legal terms and matters. Students can use the website to request a hearing with the Ombudsman and read questions and answers that others have posed

Tasks to Specific Users: Tells students how to file grievances and directs them to links such as The Academic Freedom Report and other MSU documents which outline student rights.
For everyone, there are university policies, swine flu facts and important dates.

User Navigation: It does not seem easy for users to navigate since one would have to know exactly what they were looking for and be familiar with the Ombudsman site for it to be useful.

Navigation Structure: This website is not easy to navigate. It is broken up into way too many pages and is stressful and cluttered. There are too many steps to go through and could be condensed into a much more visually appealing website that is user friendly.

Branding/Logo: The logo is simple, but effective. It is symbolic of communication and the Beaumont Tower shows MSU pride. When I was on other pages, I clicked on the logo expected it to take me back to the homepage but they were not linked.

Color Schemes: The color schemes are boring and the Comic Sans font is somewhat unprofessional. The green and white is standard for MSU websites but it is more of a grey and green which don't look very attractive together. The flashing “new” buttons are distracting.

Layout Presentation: The homepage is very cluttered considering there are buttons everywhere and they are not grouped in any particular order.

Summary: This website is not updated and would confuse me if I needed to use it. If it were updated, it could be very helpful to users. However, I see it as overwhelming and not something that I would want to ever use and would probably end up trying to call their office instead of using the website.