Sitelines: the redesign project of the BAC's Web site

Count me in!

Great idea to include the BAC community in the site redesign. You should consider prominently featuring student work as a means to communicate some of the unique aspects of the BAC culture and showcase the BAC’s position as a formidable design school.

This is great, finally a step to a better organized community of design professionals.

-even this blog is better the our current web site!
I would like to see videos of student’s work, also every BAC student should have their “profile page” , something like the BAC-Facebook.

This is an excellent step for the BAC!  Our community is large and diverse and the website can serve as a way to connect and reconnect ourselves.  Looking forward to updates and constructive comments and ideas and being part of the process.

I do not know if this is possible, but would there be a way to sign into the website and be able to accesses everything we need to with out having to sign in over again? For example having a sign in page that allows you to access your email, I.Q. web, and angel.

Getting community involvement is a great idea, but, let’s not repeat mistake of our past: the current website design is a product of the dreaded “design by committee” approach, and therefore it’s not surprising that it didn’t turn out as good as it could have. Soliciting feedback is healthy; being a slave to the whims and fancies of every bow-tied designer with an opinion is not.

I don’t know about “BAC Facebook.” Who would have access to it? Why would this be helpful over just using Facebook?

The BAC should foster healthy creative conversations, but I don’t feel the site should be a social portal as much as an educational, design-related hub of school- student- and industry-related and current information.

The BAC needs a website that actually looks like it belongs to a DESIGN SCHOOL…..ever seen RISD’s website? Or Pratt’s? They are all cleanly and graphically designed, whereas the BAC’s is not.

Beyond aesthetics, a website that actually worked would be great….

The priorities for a new website should be, in order of importance:

1. Useful content and easy wayfinding.  It’s frightening how much information very important to current students is missing or very difficult to find.

2. Better access to BAC facilities.  It’s bad enough that the school closes at night, but for there to be no access to software that students need is horrible.  Computer labs at other schools don’t close at night, and there are network licenses available for students to use from home.  HELLO!  We work during the day, we need access at night.

3. A place that creates a better BAC community.  In this digital age there is no excuse for non-existent features like a place for student work, student classifieds (used books, etc.), and a student run newspaper or blog.

Please, please, please keep it MINIMAL in design expression, MAXIMAL in useful resources.  No flash needed.  No clever tricks, just good old-fashioned code and usability (front-end and back-end).

Thanks for all the comments and please keep them coming. Peace in the New Year! Gretchen

If I were the BAC website, I would feature some of the exciting careers and lifestyles our students lead after and upon graduation, to arouse intellectual ideas and possibilities. I would feature the student blog with real BAC students discussing their insight and perspectives while at BAC, for perspective students to here it from their peer, wether bad or good!  Honesty, is key. And I would also lead students to clearly understand why choose BAC, with the ‘proof in the pudding.’

Please consider that in the near future people will increasingly access websites from a phone ( ie. iphone ).  You may not want to port the entire site to a mobile format but at least a few pages.

Make sure to keep the mobile users in mind as well. iPhone & smartphone stylesheets would be a great bonus in usability.

I’m with you Jasminep, on featuring alums on the web and across our print materials and ads too. BAC alums - and students in Practice Practice alternatives - are doing amazing work that people need to know about that will explode some notions about the BAC and better tell our story.
I’m interested in how the Student
Development dept. will evolve their blog and take their ideas to the website, wroking with our new tech support.
To Concerned Citizen, I am chuckling at your
comment about bow-tied designers (we have do
have some folks in bow-ties that are very saavy and are raising money and also keeping us in Cuba, by the way!) Mike, our lead tech web designer, is not wearing a bow tie, last I looked…

Thanks for the chance. Know what I’d like? An Angel portal that is more user friendly: integrated with the BAC site, a VoiceThread option that is simpler and more flexible to add to, Discussion Boards that work without reformatting text. And browser support for Safari.

I would feature the student blog with real BAC students discussing their insight and perspectives while at BAC, for perspective students to here it from their peer, wether bad or good!  Honesty, is key. And I would also lead students to clearly understand why choose BAC, with the ‘proof in the pudding.