Comparative study between MyAUP, MyWU, MyUW and MyUSF

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Comparative study between MyAUP, MyWU, MyUW and
MyUSF 
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Introduction 

• Why a comparative study
• To get a good idea of the different existing
  products on the market. so we can get inspired by
  good ideas without reproducing the same mistakes.
  
• Method
• To make this comparative study, I looked at the
  content of each website, how was the information
  organized and how accessible it was.
• I also tried to understand these university
  websites according to the size of their campus,
  the importance of the city and the diversity of
  the programs offered.  

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University of San Francisco

•  
• Presentation of the University of San Francisco
•  
• -The university counts 8447 students and is
  located in San Francisco, a 800,000-inhabitant
  city.
• -The university is particularly recognized for
  its law, business and management programs
• -USF is ranked in the top 20 of the best
  university of the US

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General comments on MyUSF

• I could not access to myUSF but only to a demo.
• The website is very well organized which makes
  the information very easy to access.
• MyUSF is divided in only 6 rubrics Students,
  Admission, Services, Community, Calendar and
  Personal Information.
• -The rubric Admission and Community might be
  confusing (why would a student would be
  interested in its admission since he is already
  in the university).

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• Design
• The design is pretty much the same everywhere.
  However, each rubric has its proper colors, which
  help to quickly memorize the way the information
  is organized.
•  
• Information
• -The user is not overwhelmed by too much
  information.
• -An information belonging to one rubric is never
  repeated in another rubric
•  
• Conclusion
•  
• There are no particular problem, no superfluous
  information but no particular inventive tool
  either. Everything is made perfectly clear and
  simple
•  
• Compared to MyUW and MyWU, MyUSF is a small
  website which is supposed to complete the general
  USF website. Compared to MyAUP its better
  organized and easier to access. However this kind
  of website will no fit to a big university like
  the Washington University or the University of
  Wisconsin-Madison.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Presentation of the University of
  Wisconsin-Madison
•  
• -The university counts 42000 students and is
  located in Madison, a 500,000-inhabitant city.
• - The UW was ranked 17th among world universities
  and 15th among universities in America.  

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General comments on MyUW

• Design
• The design is the same all long the website and
  the colors are the same from a rubric to another.
  However the possibility to edit its own space
  seems particularly interesting.
•  
• Information
• -The content of the website is more important
  than the content of MyUSF, more services and
  information are offered which is a consequence to
  the important difference in term of students
  number in the two universities.
• -Pages are not overloaded
•  

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• Weaknesses
• -Some information like the weather might seem
  useless.
•  
• Strength
• MyUW proposes some great tools
•  
• 1) My webspace
• This gives you how much space is left on your
  hard drive
•  
• 2) Customize your page
• Possibility to customize your pages depending on
  your personal needs
•  
• 3) Live chat
• There are chats everywhere, on every social
  network and even on mailboxes but still, its
  always nice to have one.
•  
• 4) Lost and found
• Critics
• Except that there is no point to have a rubric
  myPage and a rubric home since the both display
  more or less the same information, the rest of
  the website is really good. The design is sober
  but efficient and the possibility to edit its own
  pages is really interesting.

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Washington University

• Presentation of Washington University
•  
• -Washington University is located in Seattle a
  city of 600,000 inhabitants, AUP in Paris,
  2,000,000 inhabitants and 11 if we integrate the
  suburb.
• -According to Wikipedia, Washington University is
  approximately 42 times bigger in terms of
  students number than AUP and have a campus of 3
  km2.  

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General comments on MyWU

• The design of the website is very simple and
  sober. We find the same colors code throughout
  the website.  
• Logically, MyWU provides more information than
  the two other website do, which is not always a
  good point.
•  

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• Weaknesses
•  
• -Some of the information is very hard to access
  especially when you are not familiar with that
  kind of huge website.
•  
• -Pages are overloaded which makes things
  difficult to find
•  
• -The information found is often redundant
• ? One can find a list of the campus events on
  almost every rubric.
•  
• -Some of the information provided would be
  useless on MyAUP
• ? Theater program, Parking information, Cultural
  program of the different place in the city,
  address book and phone book of every student who
  live in the campus
•  
• Strength
• -Consequently to the size of the University MyWU
  provides more specific information and seems to
  be updated more often.
•  

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MyAUP

• I/ Design
• The organization of MyAUP is very confusing.
• -It is very hard to find things when you are not
  familiar with the website.
• -The rubrics do not respond to the user needs
• --gt there is no rubric for finance

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Conclusion

• Division of the website
• USF chose to separate its website in two distinct
  part
• A part where one can find general information
  about the university life
• A part where one can find his private information
• Advantage The two different websites are
  lighter.
• Drawback The user is more confused when it comes
  to find an information that could be in both
  part.
• UW and WU chose to link the two different parts
• Advantage The user dont have to contently
  switch from a website to another.
• Drawback Consequently to the repetition of some
  information the websites are less pleasant to
  navigate.

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Conclusion

• Information
• MyAUP, because of its situation does not need as
  much information as the three others.
• Information such as the cultural activity in
  Paris, the weather, the parking space and all the
  information relative to the campus student rooms
  would be useless for AUP.
• The best example in how much information should
  be provided on MyAUP.
• MyUSF provides light information and pages are
  not overloaded, which makes the navigation inside
  the site very easy and pleasant.

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• Rubrics  
• After analyzing these 3 websites, I think the
  best organization by rubric would be a mix
  between MyUW and MyUF
• Home, Academic, Finance, Services, Personal
  Information
• Also the idea of a unique color by rubric
  observed in MyUSF is very interesting.
•  
• Colors
• All the websites chose white as a background and
  then play with the color code of the university
  which myAUP already does.

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Conclusion

•  
• Tools
• Some of the tools proposed by MyWU could be very
  interesting for MyAUP (My webspace, Customize
  your page, Live chat, Lost and found)