Yeah, I like it... nice use of space, cleaner, easier to read I think. I'm a designer so I'm pretty particular on these type of things. Good luck on getting long, horizontal images! Those are harder to find and to take, but the examples look very nice.

We have one of the best-designed/-looking and logical/easy-to-use home pages out of all the colleges and universities I have looked at...and that's a lot. I would refer most other schools to our site to see how it's done. This next rendition looks like it will rachet it up again. I really enjoyed the "12 years" overview/history. Good to go back to see where we came from when the web can be so fleeting and ephemeral.

Two tweaks would make my life hugely easier. Please put a link to the A-Z directory of web pages on the top navigation bar so no one has to scroll down to find the directory. Also, there should be a homepage link directly to the university registrar.

Great! I love the new design and its just in time, I'm redesigning here too. I have a few suggestions though, I'm aware most of these might be a bit too specific but here goes...

1. (Top) Is it possible to have a more flexible navigation banner? Maybe magically incorporate a way to separate the banner from content for programs with their own identity standards and colors. Just a concern rather than a suggestion.

2. (Middle) The common horizontal nav menu looks half done. I don't know if O-H! should be on this menu. Maybe a link to "Student Life" and have diversity part of it. We need less of the portal look, giving them a busy website from the start may overwhelm new visitors.
"Apply Now" | "Student Life" | "Academics" | "Research" | "Outreach" | "Current Students" | "Faculty" | "Alumni"

3. (Bottom) The footer seems to be talking too much space. I think the logo, address and fine print should be combined. If it is horizontal screen occupation that is of concern, maybe adding an option to expand and collapse the news/events and site map sections much like the new http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ (lower section) would help considerably.

I don't see the improvement in the homepage design over the current page. The current homepage is surprisingly clean and easy to read. Resources are better spent focusing on other less easy to use pages (like the class schedule / registration pages).

Unless the horizontal nav bar is to be consistent across pages, it isn't likely to make navigation clearer or easier. The nav bar text especially is too small and not contrasted enough with the white background, and the text in general is too cramped without sufficient contrast. The large graphic is the only brightly colored element on the page, and it stands out from the text in an uncomfortable way, especially considering this is probably the least useful part of the page. I'd expect that relatively few users will be interested in that large graphic and clicking on the link.

Please bear in mind while redesigning the website that it's extremely difficult to get the most basic phone numbers on campus unless you know the exact name of the person or place. I think the person search engine is pretty good, but it's very hard to pull up an office name, even after scrolling through the entire list of entities. If you work at the Med Center and try to hunt something down at the main campus, it can take some research. We don't necessarily get the OSU faculty/staff directories so we have to do our best on the website. It would be great to have a search engine for functional links.

IMHO, the current page is good - just a few comments:
1. Make the space used by the large, single photo into two or three smaller ones for photos. It's nice to be featured on the front page. The sketch with two banners of small photos render the page too busy and harder to navigate.

2. I agree with the comment about making other pages (registrar, class schedule, financial aid, HR) easier to navigate to and through. Getting there is more than half the obstacle. Many departmental sites are clumsy to find, click through, and/or search.

3. Keep the A-Z departmental list easily accessible; it's a great help.

4. The front page should be designed to fit completely on a mid-sized monitor.

5. Please do not forget that there are "A LOT" of people using the website who are not in the 18-25 year age-range.

I really like that "Buckeye Link" is in the top navigation element. It will make it much easier for students to find everything.

Perhaps the biggest improvement that could be done to osu.edu is to give email users more server space. In the time of Gmail and other massive email services, 15MB seems a bit antiquated. Perhaps a ground-breaking public-private partnership with one of the main internet companies could better serve email users. I realize that a savvy user can store their email on their hard drive via outlook, but many users are not this savvy. Additionally, when I went on study abroad and could not bring my main personal computer, I could not access my email archives (as they were on my computer) or save large emails.

I just graduated from OSU this month and have nothing but positive things to say about my experience using ohio state's computer interfaces and website. As the people behind the scenes, the ones who get the calls in the middle of the night when things go haywire, you all deserve a hearty Thank You.

Go Bucks!

I like the current design. The only thing I would change is the "Current Students" link to the "Buckeye Link". I would prefer the width to stay the same or the width to be self adjusting to the size of the browser window, because I like to have my task bar on the side of my screen as apposed to the bottom; and I prefer to scroll down over having to scroll sideways.

There are some minor changes, but I see nothing major. I was excited to see a new home page coming, but honestly, it's not different enough to justify what this is probably costing. I agree with the previous user to allocate the resources toward the Registrar's page!

This homepage design is great. I just don't see our badge/logo beside "The Ohio State University".

This design is sort of like cornell.edu

I think the new layout looks very nice and has more color than the current bland pages. What I dislike about OSU's page now is that there is a wide white band that I think could be filled in with something...maybe a vertical logo or something.

Something that I think would me very useful that we do not currently have is one login on the home page, the idea is that you do not need to be redirected to a separate page to log in for say the registrar or webmail. You simply have a username and password built in to the home page. Then once you have logged in it could to take you to a page that has easy access to all of the restricted pages. Rather than continually having to re-login to navigate OSU.Edu.

It would be nice to see the map of Ohio with the regional campuses highlighted on the home page. This is great support for President Gee's "One Univeristy" emphasis in support of the 6 new strategic goals.

I think the biggest thing you could do when redesigning the OSU homepage is to make it cover the entire screen instead of just a portion of it. This has CONSTANTLY annoyed me and everyone else that I know of since the last time the site was re-designed. Thank you so much for your efforts, I'm sure you guys will do a great job!

I really like the designs, the only thing I would add would be a link to carmen on the homepage since a lot of classes seem to be using it.

I really liked the red bar across the top that several university sites have started to use to tie our sites together on some level - it would be nice to see that be incorporated into the new look.

I would avoid the underlying grid - it messes up the clean, easy-to-read feel of the new layout.

As OSU is the land-grant university for the state of Ohio, and Extension is the outreach arm of the university to carry out the land-grant mission, it would be a nice addition to the direct links area to have a link to the Extension home page. Other land-grant universities across the country have done this as well (see http://osu.okstate.edu/; http://www.k-state.edu/; http://www.msu.edu/; http://www.psu.edu/ (under Outreach Programs drop down); and http://www.wvu.edu/.)

Upon looking at this some more... I'm a bit troubled by having to scroll down for the things I use the most... the links and search screen that are under Locations etc. Now they are easily found now right at the top with no scrolling... the new design they are at the bottom and I have to scroll, even with the HUGE monitor that I have, so I know nearly everyone will have to as well. That's kind of inconvenient for things a lot of use nearly every time we come on here.

That's the only new comment I have.

The new homepage is rather bland and unexciting. Add some scarlet - a logo, a background image, a border - something to the header to make it look like a website instead of a scanned sheet of plain paper. The homepage should draw visitors in, and white & gray doesn't cut it.

Given the caliber of our compeition and impact that this page will have on student enrollment, productivity, and involvement in the university, I think that this redesign needs to seriously maximize both utility and appeal.

On the whole, the redesign of the home page is great.

Pros:
- the panoramic view is the best element in terms of overall appeal (worked well in a previous home page)
- the buttons are clear and simple and, as a bonus, act as a border or frame for the panoramic view
- the events and news section is more subdued, but still very accessable and effective

Cons:
- the buttons, when placed in the long chain, are not as user friendly as they currently are
I would like to see some buttons in a chain, but the main ones should be in a column pattern.
- the "buckeyelink" button is ridiculously too small and located in an obscure location
That button is, for me and many others, the most commonly pushed button on the site.
- the red and gray bar at the top should be slightly thicker to give it more prominence
- the size of words "The Ohio State University" is too small for a university so large
- near or under the title we need a symbol ie. the seal of the university in a very faint gray
Only a part of the seal is needed, just enouhg to convey the university's tradition and prestige.

It looks good. Not an entire overhaul, but still, enough to make it diffent and nicer.

However, you know what bugs me? The current osu.edu page is always on the left side, and if I maximize the page it stays up against the left side of my screen. It looks to me like this one will too. I think it would be so much better if it could be centered in the browser or expanded to take up the whole space.

I think the OSU logo should be at the top of the homepage.