Examination of higher education web pages

Good day,% username%. I want to share the results of my research, which was conducted at one of the stages of development of the graduation project.

Introduction

So it turned out that as a graduation project I received the development of a web resource for an educational institution. The main difficulty for me was to determine the design of page templates for a web resource, since it was the first serious project. Complicated the situation and the fact that neither I nor the customer had a clear idea of ​​how the sketch will look and where to begin with its design. Then we were visited by the idea to conduct a study of web resource pages in order to get the template diagrams, on the basis of which sketches of templates of the web resource being developed will be built in the future.

Object of study

The sites of Russian and foreign higher educational institutions were chosen as objects of research. First of all, it was necessary to decide on the criteria for selecting sites for further research. To begin with, selections were made based on the rating of the educational institution itself, and then based on visits to web resources, data about which were taken from analytical web resources.
From the point of view of ratings of educational institutions, the samples were made on the basis of the ranking of the best universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings and the ranking of the best universities of Russia according to the National University Rankings. The results of the samples are presented below.
Ranking of the best universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings:
')

1. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom).
2. Harvard University (United States).
3. Yale University (United States).
4. University College London (United Kingdom).
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States).
6. University of Oxford (United Kingdom).
7. Imperial College London (United Kingdom).
8. University of Chicago (United States).
9. California Institute of Technology (United States).
10. Princeton University (United States).
11. Columbia University (United States).
12. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland).
13. McGill University (Canada).
14. Australian National University (Australia).
15. University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong).
16. The University of Tokyo (Japan).
17. National University of Singapore (Singapore).
18. École Normale Supérieure (France).
19. Peking University (China).
20. Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (Germany).

Ranking of universities according to the National University Rankings:

1. Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov.
2. St. Petersburg State University.
3. National Research University MIPT.
4. Russian University of Peoples' Friendship.
5. Novosibirsk National Research University.
6. Tomsk National Research University.
7. National Research Nuclear University "MEPhI".
8. Moscow National Research Technical University named after NE Bauman.
9. St. Petersburg National Research Polytechnic University.
10. South Federal University.
11. Siberian Federal University.
12. Kazan National Research Technological University.
13. Tomsk National Research Polytechnic University.
14. Ural Federal University (Ural State Technical University) named after the first President of Russia BN Yeltsin.
15. Saratov National Research University named after NG Chernyshevsky.
16. Russian State Pedagogical University named after A. Herzen.
17. Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University.
18. National Research Technological University MISiS.
19. Kazan National Research Technical University named after A.N. Tupolev.
20. Irkutsk National Research Technical University.

The Google Top 1000 services for foreign universities and Mail.ru and Rambler.ru rating services were used as analytical resources for the sample. After a careful but futile review of all sites included in the rating from Google, it was revealed that it does not contain educational sites, so this sample was not included in the further study. Russian educational institutions were, of course, in the ratings from Mail and Rambler. The results of these samples are presented in the tables below.
Rating of universities based on the rating "Mail":

1. Saratov State University.
2. SPBNIU ITMO.
3. Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
4. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT GU).
5. Russian Economic University named after G.V. Plekhanov.
6. Stavropol State University.
7. Volodar State University. S. Toraigyrov.
8. MISI-MGSU. Moscow State University of Civil Engineering.
9. Volgograd State Technical University.
10. Moscow State Law Academy.

Ranking of universities based on the rating "Rambler":

1. All-Russian Correspondence Financial and Economic Institute (VZFEI).
2. Moscow Medical Academy. IM Sechenov.
3. SPbNIU ITMO.
4. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
5. Orenburg State University.
6. Russian State Medical University.
7. Moscow Institute of Open Education.
8. Altai State Technical University. I.Polzunova.
9. Moscow State University of Communications (MIIT).
10. Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry.

Stages of research

Further, for each sample, a study was conducted. To begin with, the main elements of web pages were identified that are present on all sites of the sample (for each element a color is defined, with the help of which this element will later be applied to the color map of the template):

• navigation bar (red);
• news feed (pink color);
• school logo or its name (blue);
• the main graphic image describing an educational institution or its activity in order to attract the attention of users (green);
• contact information (black);
• communication resource with third-party resources and social networks (yellow).

The next step is to determine the position of each selected object of the main page on the screen. To do this, translucent shaded areas were superimposed on the white sheet in the places where this object was placed on sites. Subsequently, all these locations were combined on one sheet and an overall picture of the placement of page objects of the web resource was obtained.
After this study, it was found that the sample according to the ranking of the best universities in Russia and the rating of the companies Mail and Rambler give the same results, so the decision was made: the results of the study should consider only the template schemes based on samples of the best foreign and Russian universities. The following figures show the results of the study.
Based on a sample of sites of foreign universities


Based on a sample of sites of Russian universities

Research results

Based on the results obtained, it can be noted that the schemes in terms of the location of objects give approximately the same result. The difference in terms of location of objects should be noted the ambiguity of the location of the contact panel on the websites of Russian universities, as well as the almost complete absence of links to social resources. The main difference is that foreign universities have a site in the center of the screen with a fixed width, and most Russian universities tend to stretch the site on the whole screen.

Results

What's better? Judge for yourself. From myself I just want to add that for the further design of the template for the developed web resource, I used the template scheme obtained from a sample of the best foreign universities, as this option more suited the customer and is more convenient for display on mobile platforms.
I will also note that designing a sketch of the template based on the study made it possible for the customer to get a convenient web resource that meets his requirements, and I am rated as “excellent” in the defense of my graduation project.