Fixing the Web Site

A guidance counselor from one of our local high schools called up and said, "All of us in the guidance department think your Web site sucks." So I said, "I'm sick as hell of people saying our Web site sucks and all I get from them back is garbage like, 'The blue doesn't work with the red.'"

So then the guidance counselor said, "No, we like the way it looks. It's just that we can't find anything."

So then I said, "I'm so sick of people calling up to complain, 'I can't find anything on the Web site' when everything anybody would ever want to know about Brookdale is all right there."

"It may be there," the guidance counselor sniffed, "but it's buried so deep into the site that it might take us a half hour to find something that we're looking for to help students who may be interested in coming to Brookdale."

"Oh yeah, Ms. Smarty Pants Guidance Counselor," I snapped back. "Like what?"

To my stunned surprise, she said exactly what: "You don't have any link from the homepage that leads directly to information about all of your degree programs, that's what."

Gulp. She was right. Homina, homina, homina.

Once we fixed that problem, I apologized profusely for being such an arrogant twit. "Oh please, Ms. Guidance Counselor, would you be so good as to point out other ways you and your colleagues would like to see the site improved?"

She shared other ideas about what information needed to be more easily accessible from the homepage. And now we ask you about any ideas you may have for connecting people more directly to much-needed Web site information.