Introduction
The Florida Climate Institute (FCI) is a partnership of six universities. Wanting to focus on climate-related activities within the University of Florida and the surrounding geographical area, UF representatives of FCI contacted the PIE Center about creating a new website.
PIE Center researchers recommended communications audit of FCI’s current electronic communications with a comparison of what UF’s FCI website would look like. Following the communications comparison, the PIE Center developed a web specifications document, which outlines the structure, layout, design and content of the proposed website.
The PIE Center requested and received a representative sampling of materials used by the FCI to communicate with both external and internal audiences. These materials were reviewed and analyzed for design, consistency, usability, messaging strategies, and effectiveness. In addition to the website, researchers reviewed two electronic newsletters and a printed brochure.
Key findings
The current logo of FCI was found to clearly show the name of the organization, but the logo did not graphically represent climate change or the collaboration among universities. Further, the organization’s tagline, “Cross-disciplinary climate research in service of society” was confusing.
With regards to site organization, duplicate and repetitive links made the FCI website appear complex and cluttered. Pages for upcoming events, papers and publications, as well as recent news were linked in several different locations. In addition, two separate links to “Become a Member” sent site visitors to different parts of the website.
PIE Center researchers found the “Events” area of the website to be confusing, as well. The page contains only information on upcoming events and not about important events that FCI has attended or hosted in the past. This information could be beneficial to show FCI’s network and influence.
Key recommendations
When the UF chapter of FCI creates a new website, PIE Center researchers recommended the organization closely examine menu and navigation links to ensure information is easy to find. The website should also use simple language that the general public portion of FCI’s audience can understand.
In addition, the UF branch of FCI should limit the content it displays on its homepage. This will present a focused, clean and organized introduction to what the organization does. Most of the information that visitors would seek can be reached through well-organized navigation menus, which increases the overall time spent on the website.
