Survey Form
Here are just a few examples of the interview responses we received for this project.
News Media Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 39
Family Status: Married
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person visits the Clemson CAAH college, departmental, and program pages often. Usually she is looking for information with regard to off-campus housing, the Brooks Center performance calendar, information regarding the History department, and information on the MAPC program. Mostly, she says that she finds what she needs; however, she says that "finding information on the faculty is hit and miss, as some of them have profiles on the department site, some have personal pages, and some have nothing."
Overall, she thinks that the existing pages are "good," but she would like to see more updates to current news. Also, she would like to see a more updated design. She says: "While the new top-level Clemson.edu pages look better, they push the actual content too far down the page in order to accommodate large graphics, so please avoid that!" She would also like to see a uniform faculty database that would "push consistent and complete information to pages across clemson.edu."
This person uses the Internet mostly at work, but also nightly at home. When at work, she is in a private office, so she doesn't have to worry too much about privacy. She uses a Mac with Firefox as her preferred browser, and she has high speed DSL.
News Media Interviewee
Gender: Male
Age: 39
Family Status: Married
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person admits that he doesn't ever visit the CAAH, departmental, or program pages - although he sees that there would be value if he needed to look up "a colleague's contact information and perhaps biographical/professional information." "Otherwise," he says, "if I wanted to learn anything specific about a class or a program of study, the department's web page would be the place to start."
In terms of a wish list for content, he would like to see an organizational chart with current names, so that visitors could grasp a department's structure at a glance. He says that "one for the college as a whole would be helpful as well, though that would probably be a mammoth undertaking."
This person uses the Internet both at home and at work where he has a private office. He uses a PC and Internet Explorer with Clemson's fast connection at work and high speed DSL at home.
Prospective Undergraduate Student Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Family Status: Lives with her parents
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person has been visiting the Clemson website, specifically the CAAH website, frequently in the past few months as she has been researching universities and programs. She uses the CAAH website as a portal page to other departments because there isn't a link on the page for "prospective students." After finding interesting programs, Haley is then looking for program information, deadlines for application, course requirements and program requirements. She also wants to see information on current students and faculty in the form of social media and profiles to get a better feeling for the people in the program.
Typically, she uses the Internet at home. She has a desktop computer in the den and a laptop that she uses around the house, but mostly in her bedroom. She uses PC computers and prefers Firefox Internet browser. She does not know her internet connection speed but says that it is really fast and allows her to stream online videos very quickly.
Academic Advisor Interviewee
Gender: Male
Age: 37
Family Status: Married with kids
Ethnicity: Prefer not to answer
When this person visits the Clemson website, he typically goes directly to the main Clemson admissions site, and rarely if ever uses the CAAH site - mostly because he claims he didn't even know about it! He would definitely be interested, though, especially if it were more user-friendly. "We have a large number of our students who apply each year to Clemson," he said, "so I do think it could be a valuable resource."
He uses the Internet quite often when meeting/advising with students and parents. Specifically when visiting a college website he looks for: program descriptions, financial aid information, timelines/deadlines, course requirements, scholarship information, general college information, admissions procedures, and contacts for the various departments and programs. He typically has to use a search function to look for contact information, as it's often difficult to find.
This person uses the internet at work and at home; at work he uses it in a private office. He uses a PC, although his "wife is begging [him] to switch." He prefers Internet Explorer or Firefox and uses a T1 connection at work, with a cable modem at home.
News Media Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Family Status: Single
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person claims not to visit the CAAH page, as she surfs more through the general Clemson website. She does think it's important, though, to have a link to a mission statement on the college page, as well as easy links to find faculty and staff members. Her examples of people she'd like to be able to easily access for story ideas/contact information are department chairs and the Dean of the College. She also would love to see "Achievements" listed for students or faculty, perhaps on the college or department page(s).
She accesses Clemson's website via home, work, and the library - mostly in shared spaces (living room, shared office, the library), although occasionally alone in her room. She uses a PC and prefers Google Chrome, but she uses Firefox when she needs to "download something special." Her Internet connection speed is 12.0 mbps.
Alumni Interviewee
Gender: Male
Age: 29
Family Status: prefers not to answer
Ethnicity: prefers not to answer
This person visits the CAAH page to see what is new in his program and what is new in education. He likes to stay atop of the emergent technology being used in the classroom along with new curriculum offered. He stays in touch with faculty; therefore he finds that he ends up on the faculty pages. He wants an alumni link to be included on all levels of pages with new alumni information.
This person has a MacBook Pro for work that he also uses at his house. At home, he uses the Internet in his study or throughout the house. At work, he splits his time in a cubicle and in an office at two separate locations. He prefers Firefox yet says that he also has to use Safari and Internet Explorer (on the Windows side of his MacBook) to access certain pages at work. His internet connection at work is "at least a T1" and a home it is "whatever Comcast is..."
Prospective Undergraduate Student Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Family Status: Single
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person has recently been looking at performing art programs at universities across the nation. The first time that she went to the CAAH page, she says that she immediately clicked on the right-nav link for the Brooks Center of Performing Arts. She is interested in information for prospective students: admissions and academic programs, namely. Since she enjoys film studies, she appreciates when prospective universities have videos highlighting student and faculty profiles or the university.
With the performing arts program, she is interested in the programs history, the curriculum, and why the program is better than the rest. She wants to know what students have done since graduating and usually will turn to Wikipedia to see the alumni of programs since she finds that university pages usually do not include this information.
This person uses the Internet at her house. She uses her PC laptop on the couch or at the kitchen table. She prefers Firefox and her internet is not fast so it is hard for her to stream videos. She uses the Internet everyday for one to two hours.
Clemson Faculty Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 34
Family status: Married
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person usually starts at the Clemson home page and either clicks on Departments or uses the A-Z index to find information on departmental programs. She claims to not have trouble finding what she needs. She manages the Language Declamation contest, and some high school teachers have a hard time accessing it; she would like for the Declamation Contest to be linked to the Language Department page.
This person uses the internet both at home and at work for about five hours a week at work. She works in a shared office and does not have a cubicle. She uses a PC and uses Internet explorer (she was unable to find out her internet connection speed).
Clemson Faculty Interviewee
Gender: Male
Age: 56
Family status: Married
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person typically goes to the Languages web page trying to find specific courses offered - not only in ASL, but also other coursework. He also uses it for advising students. Courses are difficult to locate, so he typically uses the alphabet index at the top to conduct searches. He wishes that he could go to one page for ASL coursework, one page for Spanish coursework, English coursework, Math coursework, Core requirements/general education requirements, etc.
This person believes that individuals seek out ASL for specific reasons, for example career opportunities, advising students who want to minor/major in ASL, etc. He has trouble finding what he needs within the CAAH web sites "all the time." It takes him a few minutes to maneuver his way through the pages to eventually find what he needs, and nothing seems quick and easy. He questions, "If I can't find what I need, how can others find it as well?" He believes students who come to Clemson to take ASL want to be able to locate it under the heading of "Languages" and see everything on one page. Once they have located ASL, then they should be able to go to another page to find their major such as nursing, teaching, counseling, social work, etc.
He uses the internet both at home and at work. He also uses it while he is away visiting friends and family. He uses the internet just about every time he turns on the computer and estimates that he uses it for 40-50 hours per week. He works in a private office and uses a PC. He uses Internet Explorer and his connection speed is 1.5 meg.
Clemson Faculty Interviewee
Gender: Male
Age: 40
Family status: Married
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person goes to the CAAH pages to look up info on colleagues. From the Clemson home page, he goes from college to the English Department page. He has had trouble finding what he needs within the CAAH web site when he is looking up resources for students and advisors.
He accesses the internet from both at home and at work, spending "many" hours a week on it. He works in a private office, but he did not indicate if he uses a Mac or a PC. He uses both Internet Explorer and Firefox, and his internet speed on campus is "fast" and at home "whatever Northland allows."
Clemson Undergraduate Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Family status: Single
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person recalls going to the English department/program page several times. When she changed her major to English, she went to find out the class requirements, and she has gone back at least once a semester to print off the "English Major Worksheet," which details all of the classes to take in order to graduate. To find it, she uses the A-Z index at the top of the Clemson home page and finds English.
She remembers the first time she went looking for the English Major Worksheet she had a hard time finding it. She eventually did find it, though, and once she knew where to look, she never had trouble finding it again. For the most part, she thinks the website is fairly self-explanatory and easy to navigate. Overall, she thinks that all of these websites have great information. However, she wishes that the English department would post the list of classes and times for the upcoming semester during advising. Also, she thinks it would be interesting to have a list of websites that could be helpful for rising seniors to look for job.
She mostly works at home on the internet for about 18 hours a week. She "shares" an office because she and her roommate have two desks in their rooms. She uses a PC and uses Firefox as her internet browser. She does not know her internet connection speed.
Clemson Undergraduate Interviewee
Gender: Male
Age: 21
Family status: Single
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person most recently used the CAAH website to go to the English Dept. page to find information on signing up for an internship that he is planning on doing this summer here in Clemson. He arrived at the site by using the "Search" box at the top of the Clemson University home page. It was very straightforward, and he was able to quickly locate what he needed. In his opinion, the CAAH website is very straightforward and easy to use. He could not think of things that he would like to see on the CAAH home page, the English departmental home page, and the program websites within the English department.
This person uses the Internet at home, at work, and at school but did not indicate the exact number of hours a week that he spends on the internet. He works a radio station at the Madren Center here in Clemson, and he archives the daily show on the radio's website after each broadcast. He has a cubicle at work, and everyone shares two computers. He uses owns a Mac that he has for personal use and he uses a PC at work for streaming phone calls during twice weekly live call-in shows. He uses Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox. He has high speed internet but is not sure what the actual speed is.
Clemson Undergraduate Interviewee
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Family status: Single
Ethnicity: Caucasian
This person went to the History and Languages pages to find out information about the major that I wanted to switch into. She used the alphabetical index on the Clemson website to find the page, and she found exactly what I was looking for including requirements, teachers, etc. She also visited the history page to learn about the different teachers and decide which one to take for this semester. It was really helpful, and she found out a lot that helped me make my choice, and yet again I used the index to find the page.
She sometimes has a hard time navigating between the sections on the right side of the pages in both the History and Languages web sites; sometimes the titles confuse her and she ends up just clicking them all to find what she's looking for.
This person likes the History web site for the most part (except for the titles in the left nav). She likes how the site has descriptions of each teacher and the works that they have accomplished. She would like for the language department to have pictures just like the faculty page in the history department.
She most often uses the internet at home for two hours a week. She uses a Mac computer and Safari as her browser, and she has an internet of 54 megabites per second.
