templatedata

Oh, I love the Way Back Machine - what a giggle!

The new design looks great. I'd love to see it highlighted in the "redesigned" section of eduStyle. Drop me a note so we can get it in there.

Argh!

So, I have no comments to offer on the design (except to wonder 'why so soon?'), but have serious comments to make on linkrot.

After drilling down to find the leave application form last time I had time off (it wasn't that difficult to find, actually) I bookmarked
http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/personnel/forms/eb_2003_2006/leave_application.pdf

Of course, that's now broken, and the leave forms are hidden, yes hidden at
http://www.usyd.edu.au/hr/policydev/leave_application.doc
which is at
http://www.usyd.edu.au/sydneypeople/forms/ . The 404 is unhelpful, and really, if you had to break this link (and others like it) then there should have been a clear hint to the new location.

I haven't finished yet. Notice how ~/su has morphed to ~/hr or ~/sydneypeople. And neither is easily findable from the frontpage. I had to go to
http://www.usyd.edu.au/sitemap.shtml
thence under 'Staff Members/online services'
http://www.usyd.edu.au/staff/services/index.shtml
and there it is, right down at the bottom. Which is a funny place to hide something that I'm guessing gets used quite frequently.

Unless of course you've been instructed to make it difficult to take time off, as punishment for not signing AWAs?

I did go back to the front page, and because I usually mentally blank out images when I'm trying to find non-visual information on a website I missed
http://www.usyd.edu.au/staff/index.shtml up there under 'staff', which does get you to http://www.usyd.edu.au/sydneypeople/forms/index.shtml eventually.

I might have written all this off, but the only format the leave form is now available as is Word. Which brakes my poor little brane. You had a PDF, PDF forms for other things exist, and the formatting of the Word document breaks when you fill it in on the computer (which I assume was the purpose of having it as Word) whereas PDFs do nice formfill things. I don't get it.

Oh, the humanity.

Hi BK,

I take your point about the link rot, especially with something as critical as a form. The new design hasn't actually changed the IA of the site, the way it works or where things are located. It has merely made it look different. Your point about not seeing the staff link is an interesting one and one I think needs to be looked at. Those main links to what are essentially the subsites have been around and used in the same way for the best part of 5 years. If they're suddenly hidden then it needs to be looked at.

In regard to the forms, you may wish to take that matter up with the owners of the relevant site.

Hey Georg,

I guess it was a little unfair getting all wrathful on you at TD. You're the most visible people to me when it comes to web services, so this was (to me) the obvious place to write something.

I should paste it all and forward to the HR/SP/Evil Catbert people I guess. .

BK, don't worry about it at all. Web Services and this blog have always been sitting ducks in terms of people expressing their wrath and we know it's not always aimed at us specifically. The web is a very public beast and very anonymous at the same time, a recipe for disaster one would think. Whoever thought this internet thing was a good idea...

Seriously, you make good points and they deserve to be heard.

Thanks Stewart. I've submitted the site to EduStyle (we hadn't actually submitted the main uni site before).