Nick DeNardis | .eduGuru

Author Archives | Nick DeNardis

Nick DeNardis - who has written 19 posts on .eduGuru.

Nick is the Associate Director of Web Communications at Wayne State University by day. By night he hosts the video blog EDU Checkup where he reviews higher education web sites live. Nick is an active member of the higher education web community and is an officer of Refresh Detroit, a group of web professionals whose goal is to promote web standards, usability, and accessibility.

Best practices for training content contributors

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

4 Comments

The driving force of any web site is the content contributors, the people who know every detail of their department and hold the key to student success. These are the people you want publishing web content. What they have is value, the closer you can get them to the content creation process the better.

Where is the fold? Google browser size vs. actual heatmap

Thursday, December 17, 2009

7 Comments

Where is the fold? Google browser size vs. actual heatmap

Google released a tool yesterday called Google Browser Size in effort to show how users with various screen sizes see your site. They also wrote up a blog post about it.

[Results] State of the University Web Department survey

Monday, November 23, 2009

11 Comments

253 Total Responses First and foremost I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to fill out the survey. The feedback from this has been amazing and I know everyone has been anticipating the results. These results will help others shape and make informed decisions about their web environment. I have a feeling most of [...]

When advertising on Hulu (pre-roll ads) goes wrong

Thursday, November 5, 2009

2 Comments

Advertising your institution on a number of sites via text, banner, or even pre-roll videos ads has become ever more popular as the shift from print to digital takes hold. There is one downside to this change though, loss of context control.

Don’t lose your identity – Create an effective print style sheet

Monday, November 2, 2009

4 Comments

Making a Web site flexible is an art. Not only does your site have to look good cross browser on screen but also scale down gracefully for a mobile phone or print.

5 min survey: State of the university Web department

Thursday, October 15, 2009

11 Comments

5 min survey: State of the university Web department

Last week myself, Michael Fienen and Karlyn Morissette had the privilege of speaking at the HighEdWeb 2009 Conference. I can’t explain how great it was to see so many higher education web professionals, I feel humbled being around so many awesome people doing great things.

Save your sanity and use a grid

Friday, September 18, 2009

11 Comments

University web designers have a tough enough job as it is, juggling users needs while pleasing committees and numerous other stakeholders. Doesn’t matter if your web office has complete control or just influence, using a grid can make completely unrelated sites look uniform.

Getting started with HTML5

Monday, August 24, 2009

4 Comments

In this short article I’m going to attempt to explain the differences, advantages and struggles of using HTML5 in its current form. It has a lot to offer but browsers still have a little ways to go for fully fledged public adoption.

Your Faculty: Do you hide or praise them?

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

5 Comments

Something that gets overlooked quite a bit in the web process is the content you don’t control, your faculty. Faculty are an intricate part of every university and essential to any graduate student, especially Ph.D. looking for a program. Promoting your faculty can be almost as important as promoting your programs.

Are you human? is CAPTCHA needed? Some Alternatives.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

15 Comments

If you have ever filled out a form online you have probably encountered a CAPTCHA. They come in many shapes and sizes. I am going to detail methods I’ve used to block bots from taking advantage of forms and their pros and cons. If you use a technique that’s not below just comment, the more [...]