Article by: Tom Russo
When students came back from winter break they were not greeted by the familiar Campus Cruiser, but rather, MySuffolk, the new and updated Suffolk University student interface. While an email was sent out over break alerting students of the change, an air of surprise and confusion still permeates computer labs across campus.
Junior Karl Hoffman, a Politics and Law Reports major, voiced a similar sense of disorientation. “There was no informational meeting on the proper use of the new system. It’s like all the same things have just been arranged in different places.”
While Hoffman and countless others are still reeling from the overhaul, others, like Casey Speros, a 19-year-old economics major, is unaffected. “It looks the same,” she said. “I actually think MySuffolk is a better name.”
While the flyers for MySuffolk say “Goodbye Campus Cruiser,” the new site is, in fact, powered by Campus Cruiser, as it says in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
There’s a good reason the new site looks much like the old one – it is. The main goal was of site designers was not to give a flashy, entertaining, or fun website experience but to streamline and make major changes that the everyday user may not even notice, according to Fouad Yatim, Chief Information Officer of IT services, amidst complaints of confusing tool bars.
“Our new sidebars follow a more logical pattern. We edited all the copy on the website, focusing on more precise text, rather than overwhelming amounts of information,” said Midge Wilcke, Chief Communications Officer of IT services.
Aside from combing the old site to edit copy, remove and rewrite poorly written information, a major issue with the old site was a preponderance of outdated and incorrect material. When the decision was made to overhaul the site two years ago, it was in part with this problem in mind. Before the overhaul it was a serious chore to remove data from the site once it was in place, according to Yatim. Multiple people had to be involved. With the new system, discrepancies and errors can be addressed by one person from any IT computer.
“There was too much scattered information, we wanted to move to categorize and give the site a more dynamic feel,” said Yatim.
Students agree that while the old site was difficult to navigate and out-dated, they had figured out how to use it. Officials cling to the belief, however, that while it may take some getting used to, it should accommodate Suffolk better than the previous site.
“If we weren’t changing with the technology, we wouldn’t be doing our job,” said Yatim.
