I’ve thought for a while that the University would do well to have more information about its finances easily available from the home page, so I was encouraged at first when the “Budget 101” link showed up as one of the articles linked in the changing banner section. (And by the way, the longer this distracting element is present, the more annoying it becomes.) But on reading the article, it appears that the University missed an opportunity here.

First of all, Flash? Ugh! When will this abomination disappear from the web? OK, thoughtful, usable things can be done in Flash, but it seems they rarely are.  The Flash development culture has always been more about showing off and eye candy than about creating helpful, informative, usable experiences. Also, today most of the things that required Flash can now be done with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, and often done more accessibly, more informatively, and more respectfully towards the end user.

Perhaps it’s because I’m currently rereading Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations, but the cartoonishness of the graphics and the paucity of actual data really seem inappropriate. As an example of the paucity of data, how about instead of pie charts of 2011’s income and expenses, showing line graphs of how those have changed over the past decade or two? Similarly with the bar chart comparing tuition at the University to peer institutions: why not a graph showing how that has changed over time? And why not show the amount expended per student, again over time and compared to our peers?

The videos of Kevin Hegarty were OK, but why not provide transcripts? Where was the captioning?

While this was better than what the University has provided in the past, less effort on glitzy effects and more on seriously communicating information would have made for a more credible message.

Update: There are captions on the videos; I just didn’t see them.

How Google Does It

Schmidt is describing an organization that exemplifies many of the most forward-thinking management values: empowerment, trust, engagement, alignment. And very much to his credit, he does it without using any of those buzzwords. (Not that buzzwords are always bad. There’s nothing wrong with talking about, say, transparency, for example.) People are going to do what they do. A company that can actually fill positions with people who actively want to do the things the job requires, who were going to perform those tasks anyway–that company has a tremendous advantage.

Of course, it takes leadership to build that kind of organization.