Alex Harries's diary

(If you are one of Portsmouth's students who gets all upset at the mention of anything Southampton-based, you might want to turn off now...)

As part of my web-based paranoia, I spend an inordinate amount of time checking out other Students' Union websites. I mentioned how impressed I was with Cambridge SU's site a while back - pretty, accessible, fast to load and easy to find "stuff" on.

SUSU (Scumhampton Students' Union) have been quietly adding in some very interesting-looking toys over the last couple of months - their i-bar, despite a couple of teething problems, is a nice way to customise the site (although I don't know if your customisations are saved with your account or using a cookie, although for a site like SUSU which encourages people to sign in and get involved, I'd hope it follows you around when you sign in).

In the last couple of days they've unveiled their new homepage and I have to say I'm impressed. I haven't pulled the code apart yet, but it looks like there's a nice bit of AJAX in the directory thingbob on the bottom right, and the graphics - for example the gallery link - are crisp and easy to read.

There are a couple of things I don't like about the new design which strike me as small oversights rather than major problems - the headings, for example "Wessex Scene" - aren't clicky, as you might expect on a "portal" page. The site still makes some use of tables (as does UPSU, I'll happily admit), and a little lateral thought might allow them to be removed without any loss of backwards-compatibility for users of older browsers.

I'm also not convinced they've made the best use of white space at the top of the page - there are lots of snippets of information on their site which could be sliced and diced into the top bar without losing the homepage's identity, for example "SUSU suggests", or a précis (or should it be "prècis"?) of the latest news story from a random news feed... There's plenty of dynamic content on the site that could be chosen, but then there's all the time in the world for them to tweak and adjust, so no worries.

Overall, I must say I'm very impressed - there's clearly a lot of thought gone into the redesign, which has built on their existing homepage's strengths. Their attention to accessibility has been criticised - I would suggest a little unfairly - in the forum topic discussing the new homepage, but there's nothing too serious and plenty to congratulate them on.

I s'pose I ought to pull my finger out now then...!

I like to keep an eye on what other Students' Unions are doing online - I'd be the first to admit that I don't know all the tricks, ideas and guidelines behind designing any sort of website, so I will happily admit that I take my cues from sites designed and run by more knowledgeable people.

However, one thing I refuse to do is to simply copy designs, ideas, etc from another website - if someone is doing something cool, for example the BBC Blogs website, then we look at how and why they do things that way, and how we can adapt and improve it to suit our needs.

It's because of these two rather conflicting principles that I am more than a little annoyed at a statement by Southampton SU's Media & Communications ossifer, Laura Fewell, who published a Union Council report in May saying UPSU.net has "ripped [SUSU.org] off something rotten", and then goes on to say "But on a plus, they have linked to Wessex Scene Online news feed because we rock and they don’t but want to rock like us."

Ok Laura, whether or not you're reading this, here's a reply to your statements (and please remember that this is *my* reply - not that of UPSU.net, Portsmouth Students' Union, or anyone with any actual say in anything at all whatsoever, so if you want to send an angry mob to Pompey, send them to me, and not my bosses... ;o):

• On the subject of (allegedly) ripping SUSU.org off:
  
  What makes you think we have? Is it that we have a news section? Or that we have a big advert on our homepage? Or a list of links to common areas of the site on the homepage?
  
  Is it that we provide forums for students to chat on? Or ... Well, I'm stumped, so tell me - what have we "ripped off"?
  
  Admittedly, my questions are a touch flippant, but that's purely because I really can't see how we have taken any great influence from your site in our design process. Yes, SUSU.org has a huge range of content - varied in style and generally consistent in being of good quality - but then almost every Students' Union which has made a commitment to providing a comprehensive online presence has similarly well-developed content.
  
  
• And as for linking to Wessex Scene online:
  
  When I was involved in the design process for UPSU's news section, I wanted to include news and information which was up-to-date and relevant to all of our students. I am no snob, and nor are my superiors - we know that there are many good sites external to UPSU.net which offer interesting content for students. We felt that we wanted to pick out some of the most relevant and interesting content for students in the Portsmouth (and wider Hampshire) areas.
  
  Of those sites, those which have taken the time to provide this news as a publicly-available RSS feed were ones we could syndicate from, including Wessex Scene. I must admit, I like reading WSO - I think the style is interesting and funny, and the articles are varied and well-written - and it was for this reason that we are making use of the RSS feed from Wessex Scene in our news pages (scroll down and it's a block of four small links on the bottom-left of the main news column).
  
  Maybe next year, when we bring About 120 more words in this entry