Nine months after initial redesign site is ‘updated as needed’

The San Jose City College website is being redesigned to better reflect the community and address complaints regarding the previous website.

The start of the fall semester on Monday, Sept. 3, marked the official kickoff for the redesign process, which is being headed by Seher Awan, the supervisor of business services at SJCC.

Awan said the school district felt that the previous website wasn’t easy to use, and they wanted the SJCC and district websites to have a similar look and feel.

The new website is in line with current technology trends compared to the previous site, but many students, and even some faculty members, are unsatisfied with the redesign process.

Hillary Ascensao, 21, liberal arts major, feels that the website is disorganized and hard to use on a mobile device or tablet.

“I think a more organized home page would improve the site,” Ascensao said.  “The links are hard to find, and some things are missing, such as the cafeteria hours.”

Furthermore, while the quicklinks box (located in the upper right corner of the home page) is helpful, the search box needs to be updated so that students will be able to get the most out of the website.

Ascensao said she tried to find the cafeteria hours using the search box, but her search came back with no results.
There are also a number of links on the transfer center page that need to be updated.

“Someone from each department will update their page, but not every department has access,” Awan said.

Additionally, training is needed so that college staff and faculty will know how to keep their page up-to-date.

Awan said the district also needs to meet with each department on campus to get the proper information needed for each web page.

Michael Bashista, art and multimedia instructor, likes the important dates section of the new website, but he also expresses concerns.

“It’s hard to find what you’re looking for,” Bashista said.  “I tried to find a faculty member the other day and it wasn’t easy.”

He went on to say that there are too many of the same links on the homepage, and the menu at the bottom is unnecessary because of the fact that the menu at the top is exactly the same.

Awan acknowledged that some stuff on the website is still out-of-date, but it is “updated as needed,” and she also noticed issues.

“It’s a slow process, but the school didn’t want the change to be drastic,” Awan said, who has been working on the new website since August.

Currently, the school doesn’t have a designated webmaster, Awan is a college employee filling in and doing what she was asked.

It is the priority of the college, however, to hire a webmaster.

For now, the school website will continue to be reworked, and you can expect to see changes throughout the fall semester.