Dazed and confused online

By SAM WARD

The new Mt. Hood Community College website has been out for some time, and is supposed to be easier to use, right? However, that does not seem to be the case at this time.

First of all, the web portal, “My MHCC,” is still under construction and is expected to up and running spring quarter. It was supposed to come out winter quarter, but never did. And it still is using the old system, which does not log you out until you close the web browser. What’s up with that? Why can’t they just have a system that automatically deletes the cookie when you click “log out”, instead of having you quit your browser?

The web portal is not the only part of the web site that is still under construction. Other parts still under construction include the prospective students area, especially the full-time skill assessment page. There’s still missing information, incomplete pages, and some pages will redirect you back to the page that you clicked the link on. For example, if you try to access the online bookstore from the “Current Students” site, you’ll be redirected back to the “Current Students” page.

The previous website had an easy-to-use interface and quick understanding of what’s happening. On the new one you literally have to search the website just to find what you’re looking for and sometimes the search function does not work properly. You will find what you’re looking for, but you get pages and pages of unrelated information. And there is no way of narrowing it down even if you are being very specific. The site map is very long, and there is no way of expanding or collapsing the site areas.

Another thing that the previous website had but this one doesn’t is a walkthrough of what to do before you can actually apply to the area you want. It started by saying you should first apply to the college and the major, take the college placement test, then register for classes, or at least that was the gist of it. It was all wrapped up in a nice GUI, and helped you decided what to do.

Some of the pages look too bland. Some pages have tons of text without any breaks or other visuals on the page. Not even pictures.

Also, when they did the redesign of the website, they forgot to apply the same look to the Distance Learning page. If there is a redesign, please make it complete, instead of most of the pages, because it doesn’t reflect positively.

Different layouts, incomplete pages, missing links or improperly linked pages, things like that make a site look bad. Before applying the new changes, make sure that all aspects of the page work beforehand, so there will be less work in the long run.