Being someone involved in that big 90s websites-for-money scandal I tend to have critical opinions of most web efforts. But I try to be kind because I know how much money & time goes into a large web project. Still, the new UCLA law website really stinks. In no particular order of odiousness:

+ the color scheme: did I die and go to a Dockers outlet store?

+ incessant use of images of chipper-looking UCLA people. This conveys an important strategic message to the outside world: we have color photos of ourselves, and we're not afraid to use them. Boo-yah!

+ there's 14 top level menu choices that appear on every page. Just in case you're looking at the course catalog and suddenly think "Damn! A question about faculty colloquia just popped into my head! What will I click now?"

+ the navigation menus don't wait for you to click on them. So as you move your mouse around you keep inadvertently triggering the menus and trapping your pointer.

+ every page is laid out with the exact same template of fixed-size rectangles. It looks like it was built of Legos. Also, the pages are slow to load.

This was the kind of website big companies thought was really cool in 1998: putting dozens of links on every page to make it look 'complex' and 'smart' when really it was just 'annoying' and 'dull'. If Google can boil the whole internet down to one search box, surely UCLA Law can present itself in a more streamlined manner.

26 Apr 05