I promised a review shortly after the changes occurred. It has taken me a little bit longer, but here it is:

NSERC has to appeal to several different audiences, therefore I understand the need to focus on the ‘why research is important’ message to the public on the home page with the slick slideshow. The look is definitely fresher and friendlier to the public. That being said, the five second refreshes on the slideshow gave me an excruciating headache and made it difficult to look at the rest of the home page. The home page is definitely weighted towards public communication and the media. Besides the success story slideshow, there are more than four direct links to ‘Media Room’ content.

After being subscribed to their RSS feeds for over a month, I am disappointed. They have seven separate feed channels, but the segmentation of the actual content is limited. Most of the content they post is syndicated to all the feeds, which leaves the signal to noise ratio pretty high.

My other pet peeve with the feed system is that even when you click on the links within the feed to read more detail, you don’t necessarily jump to the appropriate article. Perhaps there is an error with my reader, but there were certain articles that I had to search for and had trouble finding on the media page. This has happened more than once, most notably with the recent Strategic Review and Budget release. Again, perhaps this particular post is an anomaly, but it is missing from the main newsfeed on the home page and media room pages. (Note: it does exist on the program news page.)

The left sidebar and header menus content and organization look similar to the old version of the site. Clicking through the left sidebar to particular audience segments, such as “Professors” or “Partners”, results in a change to the left side menu to provide information specific to that group. An additional feature is the dynamic locator line that tells you exactly where you are in the navigation and allows you to return to previous menus. No matter the audience, there is simply a glut of information available on the site. However, I am not really sure if there is a solution – I guess the newbies will have to grin and bear a few hours of online research to get a grasp of the vast number of programs available and whether they are pertinent to their research plans.

As a highlight, there is a handy new link directly to the application forms and program instructions on the right sidebar. I love this feature of the site – it was the portion of the old site that I had bookmarked and used all the time!! It is the best resource on the site to find information quickly when working on specific applications.

Happy navigating!