What We Like
- Relatively modern design
- Manageable menus
- Design elements that add just enough visual interest without being distracting
- Selective stats and numbers display
- Persona-based CTAs and pathing
- Generally good responsive design (on various screen sizes)
- Program search/filter page
What We Don't Like
- Navigation/menu items could be more clearly hierarchical and/or visually prioritized
- No multilingual content or translation options
- .php URLs
- Some quirks with program search/filter page
- Some text-over-image/video legibility issues
- Program type icons in Program Finder are helpful but not explained until opening the Program Type filter menu
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What We Like
- Responsive design
- Attempt to use brand colors
- Scroll-aware sticky header
- Multilevel mobile nav
- Many images appear to be optimized without excessive quality loss
- Use of CDN for static image assets
What We Don't Like
- Overwhelming navigation
- Color and font inconsistencies between website and brand guidelines
- Scroll-aware sticky header height/layout
- No multilingual content or translation options
- Catalog/Acalog homepage exceeds device width on desktop
- Acalog course details are unnecessarily hard to digest
- Sidebar nav does not clearly indicate section hierarchy, and main nav does not indicate active trail/current page context
- Inconsistent use of whitespace, padding, margins, etc.
- Typography/text styles often detract from reader focus
- Hover state quirks
- Hero carousel and overlaid CTA
Other Observations
- MassBay should be rolling out a new site soon.
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What We Like
- Curated navigation
- Good use of photos, with multiple thematic image styles
- Good use of whitespace
- Relevant calls to action (CTAs) at various points on the page
- Simple but informative and attractive program pages
- Sticky header with high-value nav items (persona-based)
- Good handling of nav items between mobile and desktop layouts
- Staggered column scroll effects to increase engagement and avoid vertical whitespace discrepanceies between side-by-side content panes
What We Don't Like
- Content fade-in-on-scroll effect sometimes creates temporary doubt as to whether content exists
- Many images are not optimized for mobile or for certain image presentations (i.e. an unnecessarily large image is served and then scaled down quite a bit)
- Carousel block is not immediately intuitive if user scrolls it mostly into view without seeing the carousel nav beneath
Other Observations
- Site was redesigned by internal web team, going live in late July, 2023
- Sticky header nav does not list prospective students as a persona, but targets them with the three main CTA buttons
- Catalog uses Acalog via custom subdomain (catalog.umb.edu), styled reasonably well
