ucl.ac.uk

Introduction

This review is about the website of University College London (ucl.ac.uk). University College London is one of the most prestigious universities in the world. The university was founded in 1826. There are numerous departments, institutes and research centres and I think that the website is very well presented so that you can trace all UCL departments, institutes and research centres from the main web page.

I am currently a part-time masters student of University College London and so I often use the "Studying at UCL" and "Working at UCL" section of this website. As a daily user of the UCL website, I think I will be able to give a good opinion of the website

Website Content

The website content is excellent. In the bottom right hand corner, in the bullet point list, there is a link named departments A-Z, which when clicked, lists an alphabetical list of UCL departments and affiliated departments A-Z and so this is very good content on the website if you want to trace any department. In this section you can also click on a link called UCL Locations in which you can take a Virtual Campus Tour (just like the real thing!). This section also contains printable maps of UCL and a route finder which I have found very useful when travelling to and from UCL Buildings.

The Discover UCL section details information about UCL and about Events and Museums at UCL. There is a link that takes you to UCL Bloomsbury Theatre's Web Page. You can then click on an events calender which lists the musicals,comedy events etc for which you can book tickets for.The Studying at UCL section details information for undergraduates and graduates and there is a link to A-Z of student services and the UCL Union.

The Working at UCL section contains a vast amount of information about what it is like to work at UCL. There is a section informing you about the benefits of working at UCL. Clicking on current vacancies leads you to a search engine which will present you with quick and concise search results of current vacancies at UCL. Other details include a staff and student directory and a human resources section.

The Research at UCL section has links for UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Impact and UCL Enterprise. You can also find out about Collaborative Research which takes place at UCL. The Vision and strategy link reporting research objectives.

Overall, In my Opinion, compared with other University Websites, I would say that UCL Website has the most content as after three years of using it, there are still new pages that I found that I had not previously discovered.

Speed

The speed of the website is very fast. I tested the speed of the website using an iwebtool which tests the speed of websites.The load time is reported as 1.14 seconds and the average speed per KB is 0.06 seconds. I have found that this complies to my usage of the website and the pages download information quickly.

Navigation

It is very easy to navigate within the website pages. If you're are navigating the website and are many pages away from the home page, instead of clicking th bak button or typing in the web page address again, you can just click on the UCL logo in the top right hand corner to return to the UCL Main web page. You will rarely find dead links on the UCL Website.

Layout and Design

The layout and design of the UCL website has excellent graphics, design and language. The four main menus based at the top of the webpage are Discover UCL, Studying at UCL, Working at UCL and Research at UCL. In my opinion these menus are cleverly set-out as most people would be visiting the website for one of these four reasons.

In case you are not visiting the web page for one of these reasons, there is a bullet point menu in the left hand corner of the web page which you are meant to click on if you are looking for a particular department or are a prospective or current student (but I would think that most people just click on the main four menu's as mentioned earlier becuase the menus are more noticeable).

As mentioned earlier in the discussion of the navigation of the website, the UCL logo is laid out in the top right hand corner of the entire UCL website and clicking on it will return you to the main web page.

Content Update

The content is updated very often. In the bottom middle of the webpage, there is a news section which is updated frequently. There is also a black bar which displays the latest headlines and this is also frequently updated.

Search Facility

The search facility is excellent. There is a search tool where you can enter a search word and you can search the site or directory. The search is powered by Google Search Appliance. The search results are very accurate and the results come up quickly.

Conclusion

My conclusion would be that ucl.ac.uk is a very-user friendly website and that I have encountered no problems with it in the last three years.