Imperial College

The names of the broad categories on the site's homepage are: departements and centre, teaching and research, coming to imperial, alumni,commercial actvities, prospectus 2001, news, student life, college information, employment at imperial;
The organization is already clear at the beginning due to the completeness of the different items shown in the homepage.
Not only topics about the present situation of the college are reported: the past plays an important role for the college's policy (origin and development of the school, nobel laureates are highlighted information).

<---

Each section is developed in a very detailed way. All you want to know about the Imperial College can be catched here: HTML, PDF, external papers provide enough details for each user.
But sometimes, the supplied information seems to be "advertising" rather than unbiased information; in other words, statements like"the College is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for teaching and research" could sound not objective assertions. Certainly, I don't pretend to get an indipendent guide about IC, but only very punctual descriptions, in this case, should be provided.
However, for very important information, the sources are indicated (e.g. for the teaching level score of each departement).
Moreover, a "College Press" section has been created: books and special publications of IC can be ordered.
This web site implements the most effective way to use links: they are divided into internal and external links and for each link is supplied an excellent explanation.
The content is always clear and readable, but its updating is indicated by giving only the update year (i.e. 2000). I have found only few exceptions such as "Computing Service" section.

<---

The designer has a sense of aesthetics; the graphics is first rate. All the visual effects are professional quality. The site design is superb.
Visual semplicity are the keywords for this web design: only needed effects are used. Graphic design and navigational design are the best (with respect to all evaluated sites). The authors have taken care of details. Backgrounds, font sizes, font colors enhance the reading. Moreover, the graphic design is coherent (e.g. the background has often the same color).

<---

The audiance goes from the student to the job-seeker.
Several external resources are supplied: IC's web portal, Student Union, IC Press Service, ... All the resources are well-designed for the intended users.
In addition, in specific sections of the site, access restrictions may occur (e.g. in the student photo gallery, in the intranet part, catering service provided to college staff and students ...)

The organization scheme is excellent. From the top page, user can easily localized the needed information: all the 10 categories of the top page cover all the possible items.
Most of the pages don't require special software/hardware resources and, moreover, they are properly divided in 2 frames:

• a small frame containing the different links
• a bigger frame containing both detailed explanation of the current active link and references to external links of related resources.

<---

As I wrote, there is an "IC Press" service where user can order a book online or offline: the transactions use appropriate security certificates.

<---