New, Research, You

Three new OU screens (from Green Cathedral?)

Research at the OU

Same old stock images but the layout is nice (fantastic grid design). Some bad usability going on here though. On the research highlights page there are a bunch of things that look like links when they aren’t (at least in Firefox). The Back to top link has an arrow facing downwards which is very odd.

New to the OU

The ‘Get instant answers’ feature is very useful and gives a nice personal touch. The prescribed 1-5 ordering of things to look at on the homepage is interesting. The subpages have less of a design and fall into the same design trap as Courses and Qualifications and other early new brand designs. As with most new OU websites, the text is a tad small for the majority of users (especially the navigation systems).

You, Five, Career or University

Youthful, playful, attractive design. Graphics arn’t very well optimised though which is particularly evident on the main homepage image where there is significant amounts of blurring around the people and “What are your study options” typography. That aside, there are some nice features in here: rollovers on the 01, 02, 03 (but what do the ‘option >>’ labels mean?

The URL of this site is open.ac.uk/five but it’s not apparent why this is the case. There are only three Herbie numbers on the homepage, not five. What exactly is the title of this site – I can count at least three potential candidates.

Seen any cool new brand designs?

Tags: Inspiration, OU designs, OU websites, Web design