Embarrassing Web Sites of Davao Schools
I used to manage the University of the Immaculate Conception (www.uic.edu.ph) website back in the time when appearance is everything in Davao's web development lifestyle. It was the time when having Flash animation in the front page is almost a ticket to a web award. It was also the time when usability and critical analysis of visitor's page trail wasn't a major issue. (I remember it was the time when former colleagues who are Ateneo de Davao Computer Science graduates forgot if the suffix in the URL's "http" header is back slash or forward slash)
Several years since I relinquished the job to Richard Base, I feel that there is not much change taking place, looking at Davao's distinguished universities, a model and driving force in pacing technology. After all, technology taught in these schools must be updated constantly and refer to books only for theories and definitions.
I took time to visit some of the web sites before and even came up with a personal ranking of Philippine university websites in 2003. I must say that Davao City does is home to many embarrassing college web sites.
Lack of direction, infrequent update, misspelled words, poor color choice (red over gray?) and atrocious navigation are the most obvious items one can point out.
Take a look:
1. Holy Cross of Davao College (www.hcdc.edu.ph)
* Very colorful that I am reminded of those filthy Smart and Globe banners on any street in the Philippines. "Colorful" is a subtle bashing to HCDC designers. An example of site with color choice. But at least this site is a little better than most of Davao's school sites because of its rich text.
2. University of Mindanao (www.umindanao.edu.ph)
* I used to see this site as the best among Davao's school websites (except when Richard handled UIC's site) since I moved out of Davao City. Decent frequency of page updates. But the last time I saw it, it's a black site with infinite loop, drawing the visitor hypnotized to the blackhole leading to nowhere. Not much to say but I am dropping that recognition.
3. San Pedro College (www.spcnet.edu.ph)
* Operation time out was the error I got when loading the page (and trying to redirect it to an IP address instead of a valid html page). Very basic yet too boring to look at, photo quality is very poor. I hope to find something worth praising soon.
4. Ateneo De Davao University (www.addu.edu.ph)
* Among the revered Ateneo schools, this one has the most shameful website to offer. Old "news" items and those questionable ("?") characters present when viewed in Firefox are something you can notice for a website whose background isn't truly identifiable as Ateneo's very own.
5. University of Immaculate Conception (www.uic.edu.ph)
* I hate the pink color; it competes those female-oriented websites in Manila. The content quality is fair, though many articles are written in superlatives they don't deserve. New content is added and the webmaster is too lazy to remove the old ones. (The headline is about a news that happened 8 months ago) The guestbook is haven for publicity-hungry mammals. Without bias as former webmaster of this site, it's one of the "best" the city has to offer.
6. Davao Doctors College (www.davaodoctors.edu.ph)
* I almost picked this as the best, even better than USEP, but looking at their homepage through Firefox, I had to withdraw the claim. A little fine tuning should catapult this site to the top, thereby shaming those universities who continue to maintain incompetent -- if not too inexperienced -- web developers and designers.
7. University of Southeastern Philippines (www.usep.edu.ph)
* This time it's my pick as the best in Davao. Noisy, unnecessary Flash buttons and inconsistent page header are drawbacks but I think this school has one of the better experienced web crew. Congrats.
8. Davao Medical School Foundation (www.dmsf.edu.ph)
* Decent website established through the years, with thinking webmasters not too busy to spend time analyzing what needs to be done. I assume this site ranks well in search engines. Perhaps the web design factor is a bigger issue why I can't pick this
site as superior. Images are not of good quality especially the menu graphics.
To other schools I can't rate, there are a variety of reasons
* I don't know if Rizal Memorial Colleges has a website
* Philippine Womens College of Davao (http://www.pwu.edu.ph/pwcdavao/main.html) is probably done in Manila and therefore is not Davao's pride.
* I don't know if there are new schools sprouting in Davao. It used to be technical schools in the past, now I believe it must be Nursing schools.
In comparison, look at the sites from other cities I admire because of the neat layout, visitor-friendly, despite some items which can be improved.
Compare them to Davao's best: http://www.usep.edu.ph
Cagayan De Oro: http://webserver.cc.xu.edu.ph/xuonline/index.html
Cagayan De Oro: http://www.ldcu.edu.ph
Manila: http://www.mapua.edu.ph
Manila: http://www.dlsu.edu.ph
Manila: http://www.letran.edu
Manila: http://www.dbtc.edu.ph
Cebu: http://www.universityofcebu.edu.ph
Zamboanga: http://www.wmsu.edu.ph
Koronadal: http://www.ndmu.edu.ph
Tuguegarao: http://www.spu.edu.ph
Several years since I relinquished the job to Richard Base, I feel that there is not much change taking place, looking at Davao's distinguished universities, a model and driving force in pacing technology. After all, technology taught in these schools must be updated constantly and refer to books only for theories and definitions.
I took time to visit some of the web sites before and even came up with a personal ranking of Philippine university websites in 2003. I must say that Davao City does is home to many embarrassing college web sites.
Lack of direction, infrequent update, misspelled words, poor color choice (red over gray?) and atrocious navigation are the most obvious items one can point out.
Take a look:
1. Holy Cross of Davao College (www.hcdc.edu.ph)
* Very colorful that I am reminded of those filthy Smart and Globe banners on any street in the Philippines. "Colorful" is a subtle bashing to HCDC designers. An example of site with color choice. But at least this site is a little better than most of Davao's school sites because of its rich text.
2. University of Mindanao (www.umindanao.edu.ph)
* I used to see this site as the best among Davao's school websites (except when Richard handled UIC's site) since I moved out of Davao City. Decent frequency of page updates. But the last time I saw it, it's a black site with infinite loop, drawing the visitor hypnotized to the blackhole leading to nowhere. Not much to say but I am dropping that recognition.
3. San Pedro College (www.spcnet.edu.ph)
* Operation time out was the error I got when loading the page (and trying to redirect it to an IP address instead of a valid html page). Very basic yet too boring to look at, photo quality is very poor. I hope to find something worth praising soon.
4. Ateneo De Davao University (www.addu.edu.ph)
* Among the revered Ateneo schools, this one has the most shameful website to offer. Old "news" items and those questionable ("?") characters present when viewed in Firefox are something you can notice for a website whose background isn't truly identifiable as Ateneo's very own.
5. University of Immaculate Conception (www.uic.edu.ph)
* I hate the pink color; it competes those female-oriented websites in Manila. The content quality is fair, though many articles are written in superlatives they don't deserve. New content is added and the webmaster is too lazy to remove the old ones. (The headline is about a news that happened 8 months ago) The guestbook is haven for publicity-hungry mammals. Without bias as former webmaster of this site, it's one of the "best" the city has to offer.
6. Davao Doctors College (www.davaodoctors.edu.ph)
* I almost picked this as the best, even better than USEP, but looking at their homepage through Firefox, I had to withdraw the claim. A little fine tuning should catapult this site to the top, thereby shaming those universities who continue to maintain incompetent -- if not too inexperienced -- web developers and designers.
7. University of Southeastern Philippines (www.usep.edu.ph)
* This time it's my pick as the best in Davao. Noisy, unnecessary Flash buttons and inconsistent page header are drawbacks but I think this school has one of the better experienced web crew. Congrats.
8. Davao Medical School Foundation (www.dmsf.edu.ph)
* Decent website established through the years, with thinking webmasters not too busy to spend time analyzing what needs to be done. I assume this site ranks well in search engines. Perhaps the web design factor is a bigger issue why I can't pick this
site as superior. Images are not of good quality especially the menu graphics.
To other schools I can't rate, there are a variety of reasons
* I don't know if Rizal Memorial Colleges has a website
* Philippine Womens College of Davao (http://www.pwu.edu.ph/pwcdavao/main.html) is probably done in Manila and therefore is not Davao's pride.
* I don't know if there are new schools sprouting in Davao. It used to be technical schools in the past, now I believe it must be Nursing schools.
In comparison, look at the sites from other cities I admire because of the neat layout, visitor-friendly, despite some items which can be improved.
Compare them to Davao's best: http://www.usep.edu.ph
Cagayan De Oro: http://webserver.cc.xu.edu.ph/xuonline/index.html
Cagayan De Oro: http://www.ldcu.edu.ph
Manila: http://www.mapua.edu.ph
Manila: http://www.dlsu.edu.ph
Manila: http://www.letran.edu
Manila: http://www.dbtc.edu.ph
Cebu: http://www.universityofcebu.edu.ph
Zamboanga: http://www.wmsu.edu.ph
Koronadal: http://www.ndmu.edu.ph
Tuguegarao: http://www.spu.edu.ph
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